Athletes
The Incredible Story Of Themba Gorimbo
Welterweight's Path To The UFC Octagon Was Anything But Typical
The scars are still there. They won’t leave Themba Gorimbo’s body or his mind. But, in some way, he’s thankful for the night his life changed forever.
Tragedy had already touched the life of the 16-year-old native of Masvingo, Zimbabwe, when he traveled to the local fields to illegally dig for Marange diamonds. His mother died when he was nine years old, his father four years later, and without a clear path for his future, he took a cloudy and dangerous one.
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“We were not allowed to dig these diamonds, but we did it anyway,” Gorimbo recalled. “I was always a lucky guy, not just lucky, but I was taking risks to go to the deep areas where it's dangerous and I always came out with diamonds. I had luck for diamonds.”
Until his luck ran out and the police showed up and caught him. But what might have been a simple arrest in most cases led to something more.
“They had German shepherds biting me,” said Gorimbo. “If you see my body, I've got dog marks all over my body where I was bitten by the dogs. That night probably changed me mentally as a person, changed everything because I got bitten by the dogs and I lost a lot of blood and I almost died. Luckily, I survived and I'm here to tell a story about it.”
What a story it is. Today, half a lifetime removed from the worst night he ever experienced, the 32-year-old Gorimbo is a UFC welterweight coming off his first win in the promotion over Takashi Sato last month, and while that’s an impressive success story in and of itself, what happened after the fight went viral, as Gorimbo revealed that he had only $7.49 in his bank account before he traveled to Las Vegas. He then auctioned off his fight kit, with the proceeds going to build a bush pump in his village in Zimbabwe in order to provide clean water for the people there. He even got a shout out on Twitter from Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson in the process.
What a month it’s been. Yeah, Gorimbo isn’t like everyone else.
“I want to be myself,” he said. “Even if people don't like me or people like me, I'd rather be myself. Let me be cherished for being myself than to be fake.”
Gorimbo is certainly being cherished back home for being himself, but the origin of being so selfless isn’t something he can explain. It’s just who he is and he’s fine with it. And while having people take his generosity for granted at times has stung him, he won’t stop looking out for those less fortunate.
“It's something I can't explain,” he said. “It's just my nature, actually, as a person. And yeah, it comes back and bites me at times that I've tried to do so much for other people, but now I'm learning how to deal with it.”
A longtime standout on the MMA scene of his adopted home country of South Africa, Gorimbo began fighting in 2010 after seeing the film “Never Back Down,” he was a pro by 2013, and in February, he made his UFC debut, losing via submission to AJ Fletcher. It was a disappointing outing, but he was not deterred, and after working with the MMA Masters crew in Florida, he put together a strong effort in the biggest fight of his career, but when asked at the post-fight press conference whether battling Sato was a do or die moment, he made it clear that he had been in more perilous positions than in sanctioned combat in an Octagon in Las Vegas.
“It was not do or die for me,” he said. “I’ve been in worse situations in my life. I fight to change my life. So there was no do or die, even based on the situation that I was in where I didn't have the money. It was more for me to just find that freedom, to get that result where I showed the world that I'm not what you saw in the last fight where I lost that fight. I am a different person and I'm capable of becoming a champion and I will be a champion. So that was more important than anything.” Not money. Winning. And Gorimbo plans on doing a lot more of it in the future.
“Money is not something that drives me,” he said. “For me, what drives me is setting goals and going after them, taking risks and taking chances and becoming what I know I’m destined to be. I will become a champion in 2024. That's my goal. And yeah, I just put it out there. I will become a champion in the UFC by the end of 2024. I know this.”
