The UFC Fighter Nobody Talks About Who Freed Thousands From Slavery

I never heard of Justin Wren until recently. And it was not his fighting that got my attention. It was what he did after.

Wren was a UFC fighter who walked away from the sport after dreaming about enslaved people in the Congo. He went there, saw it firsthand, and never really left. Families working for as little as two bananas a day. No land. No clean water. No options.

He founded Fight for the Forgotten, nearly died from malaria and typhoid in 2013, got airlifted out on Thanksgiving, and drove back one month later. That alone tells you everything about who this man is.

Since then his organization has secured thousands of acres of land, dug 70 water wells, and helped free people from economic bondage. The Pygmies gave him a name. Eféosa. The man who loves us.

I am someone who genuinely loves helping people. So when I come across a story like this I feel it. Most of us will never have the resources to do what Wren did. But the will to do it, the decision to go back after almost dying, that is something else entirely. That is not resources. That is character.