PFL Champion Spends $1 Million Prize Money To Feed Thousands In Argentina

Professional Fighters League (PFL) fighter Emiliano Sordi earned a big payday when he won the 2019 PFL light heavyweight season and playoffs.

Aside from winning the belt, he also earned a hefty $1 million paycheck.

Normally, people who would earn that much would spend it on something lavish like a new car. But in the case of Sordi, helping out his struggling countrymen was a better way to put his hard-earned money to use.

The 29-year-old mixed martial artist helped thousands of people in his hometown of Rio Cuarto, a small city in the province of Cordoba in Argentina, USA Today reported.

“I tried to use this that happened to me to help friends and people in my city,” Sordi said in Spanish when he appeared on the Hablemos MMA. “Everything here is very rough. The economy is very bad. The situation is looking very ugly.”

Like most parts of the world, Argentina is also struggling due to the pandemic. So far, there have been 1,374, 631 confirmed cases and 37, 122 deaths as of this writing according to Johns Hopkins University.

Sordi revealed how it all started. They began by giving food to about 300 people, the numbers of which eventually rose to 3,000. Hence, he never spent a single penny of his PFL earnings on himself.

"I didn’t buy anything. I didn’t go on vacation. I mean, I was locked at home. But I used those resources to help people who were going through a rough time," Sordi explained.

Regardless if Sordi was unable to enjoy any of that $1 million in earnings, what is important is that his initiative made an impact in the lives of people who are struggling over in Argentina.

Though he admits that more people are suffering, Sordi knows he did what he could and is happy doing so.

"I did what I could," Sordi stated. I invested my money in something that brought me satisfaction and it was just that: helping those who were hungry. And to this day, there’s people who are still living in hunger."

He is back in training now that restrictions in Argentina have eased up. The PFL 2021 regular season is slated to begin on April 23, 2021, with Sordi among fighters set to return.