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- Haing S. Ngor was a native of Cambodia. Before the war, he was a physician & medical officer in the Cambodian army. He became a captive of the Khmer Rouge. He was imprisoned & tortured. In order to escape execution, he denied being a doctor or having an education. He moved to the U.S. as a refugee in 1980. Though he had no formal acting experience, he was chosen to portray photographer Dith Pran in The Killing Fields (1984) & won an Academy Award. He went on to a modestly distinguished acting career while continuing to work w/ human rights organizations in Cambodia on improving the conditions in resettlement camps as well as attempting to bring the perpetrators of the Cambodian massacre to justice. OnFebruary 25, 1996, he was found shot to death in the garage of his apartment building in L.A. Relatives & friends speculated that the killing was revenge for his opposition to the Khmer Rouge.
- Ngannou was born and raised in the village of Batié, Cameroon. Ngannou lived in poverty and had little education. Height: 6' 4" (1.93 m). Weight: 145 kg. At 12 years old, Ngannou started working in a sand quarry because of a lack of funds. As a youngster, he was approached by gangs in his village to join them. However, Ngannou refused and instead decided to use his father's reputation as a street fighter as motivation to do something positive and pursue boxing.
At the age of 22, Ngannou began training in boxing, despite reluctance from his family. After training for a year, Ngannou stopped training due to illness. He did various odd jobs, until at the age of 26, he emigrated to Paris, France to pursue professional boxing. After Ngannou reached Paris, he had nothing. After living on the streets of Paris, he began training for free in August 2013 under Fernand Lopez Owonyebe at the MMA Factory. Being a fan of Mike Tyson, Ngannou was originally interested in learning how to box until his coach introduced him to the sport of MMA. Ngannou started his MMA career mostly fighting in the French promotion 100% Fight, as well as other regional promotions in Europe, until 2015 when he made his professional debut under the UFC.