UFC 250: Cory Sandhagen keeps himself grounded by working at a children’s hospital
By Marc Charles
UFC bantamweight Cory Sandhagen keeps grounded working in a children’s trauma center.
No. 4 ranked bantamweight Cory Sandhagen (12-1) entered the UFC 135 pound division in late 2018 and has won all five of his fights inside of the Octagon since. This Saturday at UFC 250 Sandhagen will have the opportunity to position himself for a title shot if he can best his next opponent. On Saturday Sandhagen will face No. 2 ranked Aljamain Sterling (18-3) who has won six of his last 7 outings in the UFC Octagon. According to Sandhagen, his manager told him that if he defeats Sterling he will be the number one contender in the bantamweight division.
During the UFC 250 virtual media day on Thursday afternoon, Sandhagen was asked about his part-time job working in a children’s trauma center.
“Mount St. Vincent is the facility that I still technically do work, I just haven’t been working through this coronavirus,” he said. “I do still work there and have been working there since I’ve been in the UFC. But instead, now I’m not working there overnights or 30 hours a week there, 40 hours a week there. Now I’m working there because it gives me a sense of doing something outside of fighting that brings a little bit more meaning to my everyday life.”
The UFC bantamweight continued on explaining his passion for working with the staff and kids.
“I help out there about once a week right now,” he said. “That place is special in my heart; they allowed me to pick my own schedule as I was coming up through my MMA career which is really hard to do when you’re a broke fighter when you’re fighting for two-grand ($2,000), and you’re only fighting three times a year that’s really hard. They really facilitated that for me, and I keep them really close to my heart. Although I haven’t been there in probably two months, since this Coronavirus stuff all started, I mean I’m definitely going to go back to work. If not next week, by the week afterward.”
Cory Sandhagen kept his UFC 250 fight a secret from patients at children’s hospital
He was followed up with a question about how the staff and the children at Mount St. Vincent felt about his career as a professional fighter in the UFC.
“Yeah, I try to keep it separate,” he said. “All of the staff, they support me, they like to talk about it so they enjoy it. I think that it’s fun for them as well. As far as the kids, those kids are there because they have a history of trauma which means that a lot of the cases have some type abuse in the past, so, for me, I try to keep it under wraps that I’m a fighter. When I tell them that I’m a fighter, a few of the older ones, they can kind of handle it. They think that I’m doing WWE, they think I’m going out and wrestling.
I don’t think that they really understand the caliber and the level of fighting that I actually am participating in. I do try to keep it separate. But the staff there, who honestly I’m a little more there for because I know that developing a relationship with a kid seeing them once a week is difficult, but, if I can take a little bit of the stress off of the staff because that is an incredibly stressful job. If I can go in a few hours a week and just take a little stress off them, that I think they need it, and that’s nice for me to try to give back to them so that they’re a little bit more rested so that when they go form relationship it can be a little bit stronger.”
Sandhagen was last scheduled to fight former UFC lightweight champion, Frankie Edgar in January before that fight was ultimately canceled. Sandhagen’s last UFC appearance was nearly 10 months ago when he defeated Raphael Assuncao by decision at UFC 241 in August 2019.
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