AARON ABY is arguably the strongest man in MMA.
While he is yet to claim any major titles, the Welshman has already won the fight of his life.
Aaron AbyAaron Aby incredibly beat cancer before returning to MMA[/caption]
Oktagon MMAThe Welshman is set to fight Zhalgas Zhumagulov this weekend[/caption]
Aaron AbyThe MMA star also represented Wales in football as a youngster[/caption]
In 2017, Aby was diagnosed with cancer and given just three to six months to live.
But after undergoing chemotherapy and surgery to remove a 15cm tumour from his stomach, he was able to make a full recovery.
He then returned to the cage just eight months later.
Speaking to talkSPORT, the 34-year-old explained: “When I was coming back from the cancer, for me, I wasn’t cured until I competed again.
“Everything really goes through your head. I don’t want to say you’re always positive or you’re always sad or not.
“Surviving is going to go through your head. I used to go through the ups and downs of locking myself in a dark room at night to: ‘Right, I’m just going to get out, crack on and go to the gym.
“I remember one night I had my last chemo and they told me we can’t do anything else. You need to nap, but we need to get you in surgery.
“If the cancer comes back during that time that will be it. And I remember one night I rang up for my blood results.
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The MMA star (third from the left, bottom) played football at a high level
“They give the wrong blood results, told me the cancer had come back. So I remember sitting on the kitchen floor with my mum crying thinking it was over.
“Then the next day they rang back up and they had give me the wrong results. So I had the night of thinking it was over to going back, so you go through all these battles.
“Sometimes you just need to bite down on your gum shield and take whatever is thrown at you.”
Before becoming an MMA fighter, Aby – who also has genetic condition cystic fibrosis – was an avid footballer and even represented Wales at youth level alongside the likes of Gareth Bale and Aaron Ramsey.
Recalling his football career, he continued: “I did one camp with Gareth Bale which was a few days but people like Aaron Ramsey, Joe Allen and that, we played multiple games together.
“You can see bits in them now that was still in them then. I like to talk about Neil Taylor too because he was first to train and the last to leave, just doing little bit of extras.
“[With Bale it was] a Wales camp in Ireland. It was maybe 5 days or a week where we took the team over, I actually played for the year above.
“So I would have probably been like 14 or playing for the 15s or the 16s and we went away and it was Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland and Wales in like a tournament for the week.
“You couldn’t have imagined that Bale would end up playing for Real Madrid one day.”
Aby next faces Zhalgas Zhumagulov in a flyweight bout for Oktagon MMA this weekend.