The once-red doors to Heavy Hands Heavy Hearts, Lumumba Sayers Sr.’s longtime gym and community center, are sun-bleached and locked, the branding tattered. This modest space on Dayton Street in Aurora was once responsible for giving hundreds of outcast youth a sense of belonging. It was a powerhouse, and now its fans and supporters are fighting to keep the mission going.

Since the Ultimate Fighting Championship's debut at McNichols Arena in 1993, Denver has been an international fight capital . The brutal sport was predicted to fall early, but it withstood the first-round onslaught and became the fastest-growing sport in the world. Today, gyms located in the metro area continue to pump out world-class talent, including Dustin Jacoby and Brandon “Raw Dawg” Royval, the #3 featherweight

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