Saved Life: My Compadre Hyungsu Kim

The moon glow engulfed us in a blue hue staining the ground around us. Our friends Ovi and Faithna had already gone to bed, leaving Hyungsu and I to finish the Soju and beer. It was a daunting task but we were up for it; after all we were the ones who decided to buy all this shit. It was a few weeks before my friend Ovi and I left Korea, so we decided to take a big trip down to Namhae Island. Hyungsu offered to drive his car down for the exhausting 8 hour trip. After we arrived we spent the day eating fresh meat from the market: samgyeop sal, galmegi, and what Hyungsu called “sea snake.” All of that was gone, the only thing left was some rice and his mom’s homemade kimchi (which was amazing). A few embers lingered in the grimy old grill we used to cook our food, and the table was littered with the empty bottles of soju, beer, and Fanta.

“Are you going to fight?” I asked. He shrugged his shoulders. “You’re really good man, you can do it all. I bet you can fuck up all the guys in your weight class,” I told him trying to build his confidence. Hyungsu tentatively smiled. At that time, I could tell that that he was unsure about being a fighter, but in reality, he already was one.

At 13 years old Hyungsu already impressed the top wrestling recruiters in the country. He was a national champion in both Greco-Roman and Freestyle wrestling. Scholarships from the best programs were dangled in front of him ripe for the picking. Tragically, this was the year he was diagnosed with Aplastic Anemia; a disease which required him to undergo a bone marrow transplant. At a young age Hyungsu saw his ambitions as a wrestler fall apart. The doctors told him having this procedure likely meant he’d never wrestle again; thus his life as a sportsman would come to a crashing halt. He remembered how upon hearing that, he “got up and stood by the window, and I got into my wrestling stance.” With his IV still attached he stared out the window lost in his thoughts. “I thought ‘fuck them.’ I don’t know why I did that… It felt right.”

Recalling the days of the procedure stirred up a lot of emotions in Hyungsu. We continued drinking and in his broken English he explained his fears going into the operation. “I’m not afraid of wrestling and MMA and Jiu Jitsu, but this, I hate [sic]. But I said, ‘just go.’ [I hated the idea of a transplant] because [another person’s marrow was] not I [sic].”  I asked, if at the time he still believed he could compete. To which he answered, “I wanted to, [even if it meant on one leg]… just go! I live, I don’t die. I felt: I don’t die [sic].” He chuckles as if to dismiss the gravity of his words. Most people aren’t strong enough to endure seeing a promising future be ripped down in front of them, and have to stare at a meek reality filled with treatment and medication. “I’m crazy,” he explained. “My mom, my father is very careful. I’m so sorry [for] my mom and my father and my brother, [but] I’m crazy [sic].” I saw the conflict on his face as he relived those days, and I admired him. He held on to his dream to continue competing despite the hardships before him. “My family thought, ‘No way, Hyungsu, no way. We do long and [hard road],” but fuck it, he fought.

Suddenly a black figure swooped right over us and nearly hit Hyungsu. “FUCK! AHHH SHIT!” I yell! The tension was suddenly broken after a bat flew over us and then jetted away. “That went right over your head!” We laugh it off and get back on topic. He explained to me that his bravery paid off. To his good fortune, the procedure went off without a hitch, and his body accepted the new bone marrow. Through rehab and regular check-ups he began to rebuild his health, but unfortunately, the world around him began to crumble.

For almost 7 years Hyungsu dealt with the weight of being afflicted with Aplastic Anemia. He was bedridden, tired, weak, and away from the wrestling mat. At times he felt alone and forgotten. Not only did he have to deal with the physical costs of this affliction, but also the emotional and even social costs that came with it. The procedure left him weak, and was prescribed a medication to aid his recovery. Sadly, this medication was deemed as performing enhancing and the wrestling body barred him from the sport. To make matters worse, his girlfriend at the time was forced by her parents to break up with him. When her parents found out he was kicked out of wrestling for using “steroids”, they decided it would bring shame to the family if their daughter continued seeing Hyungsu. In a tragic turn of events, the world Hyungsu lived in was gone. In Korea, young kids choose a path early and stick to it. Hyungsu’s path was wrestling, it’s all he ever knew, and then it was gone. But it was in this dark place where Hyungsu found a new passion: the sport of Mixed Martial Arts.

Even after reaching his nadir, Hyungsu found the silver lining. He decided to become a physical therapist; something he picked up during his recovery. Which put him in touch with Deahwan Kim. Deahwan is the Korean commentator for the UFC and Road FC, and at the time he was opening his own gym. “I was suffering from neck [problems]… He started to visit me several times a week and I got so much better. At the same time he started to teach me wrestling… So I offered him [a job as] a coach at my gym and he accepted.” Hyungsu found a way to wrestle outside the reach of the governing body.

When I first met my friend Hyungsu, he was still very green in terms of fighting ability. His wrestling was on point, but he was still developing his jiu jitsu and striking. Unsurprisingly, this development didn’t take long. That same fire that brought him to the heights of wrestling as a youth, that pushed him through his disease as a teen, brought him to the highest levels of Mixed Martial Arts. After only 2 years in MMA Hyungsu developed the skills to be invited on the inaugural season of XTM 주먹이운다 (“Crying First”). “Crying First” is a reality TV show where fighters compete and train together much like the UFC’s “Ultimate Fighter.” After sharing his life story, and being introduced to the nation, Hyungsu became a beloved member of the cast. He was so popular that the producers asked him to stay on the show as a wrestling coach. His career as a fighter has also blown up as he’s been offered fights in South Korea and Japan.

Despite his fame, despite his success, and despite his glory, Hyungsu still stays loyal to his roots. He has the words “SAVED LIFE” tattooed across his chest, and “wrestling saved my life” written just underneath that. These words carry a deep meaning to Hyungsu, a meaning most people will never truly understand.

But Hyungsu’s fighting spirit didn’t stop with his recovery; he continued to volunteer in the children’s Leukemia ward. I asked why and he poured more soju in my glass, and then into his and looked at me to cheers. “During [my] experience,” he explained after we force down the last drop of that terrible bottle, “many children gone too… [in] my bed, next to [me on the left] and next to [me on the right] I wake up and the kids [were not] there.” He chuckled dismissively to shelter himself from the sad memories. “Where? What? Where?” he symbolically asked. “[The] nurse said, ‘he’s gone to home [sic].’ But always I knew, he’s gone to the sky… after I finished [my treatment] I had many soju and many beer [sic]. I [thought of the children] in [the] hospital… fighting with the sickness.” He struggled as he got out the words. He continued, “I give [them] the power… I say… ‘You can do it! Look at me! Look at me! You can do it!’ I said [you are] the same [as] me. I fight. Look at me.” He smiled, “I hope.”

A few years later, after I already left Korea, I found this news article about Hyungsu stopping a pervert from sexually harassing a gal on the bus. After finishing volunteering with the kids, he was on his way to his own birthday celebration and saw a man inappropriately rubbing himself against a young girl. So he called him out and held him in place while the police came. I remember reading this and thinking, “Jesus Hyungsu, stop making us all look bad.”

Whether in athletics, in selflessness, and in social responsibility, the guy proves to be standard we should all try and meet. That night in Namhae, after we finished the booze and the embers in the grill had finally burned out he told me, “after I [started] wrestling, jiu jitsu, and striking… I don’t die. I live.” The guy is a fighter; long before he ever laced up 4oz gloves, he was fighting. No fight in a cage will ever compare to the battles he’s already waged, no punch or kick will ever compare to the pains he’s already withstood, and if Aplastic Anemia couldn’t do it, then no man will ever break his spirit.

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