Recorded August 2026, ahead of Crash Combat 8.

Kendell "The Lion" Ward was born in Jamaica with an undeveloped right lung. He spent a month and a half in an incubator, nameless, and the doctors did not expect him to live. Every day his mother went to the chapel and asked God to make him a fighter — "if you're going to take him, take him now, so I don't have to deal with it later."

"He literally took her serious," Kendell says, "and he turned me into a fighter."

On September 5th, at 38, he fights Paul Karns for the first 125 lb bare-knuckle Muay Thai world title ever contested — a rematch he granted himself, because nobody ever granted him one. He talks about the anger he carried as a kid and the mother who told him to go outside and punch a tree, which is why his hands still don't swell when he fights bare-knuckle. About his daughter, who at ten years old told him to leave and focus if he ever wanted to be a world champion — and the promise he made when she sent him away. About arriving in Virginia with $1,800, no home, and his dog, sleeping in a pastor's boxing gym, and building a life there over four years while his children stayed 2,000 miles behind him.

He is also a chef, and he explains the two halves of himself through Bruce Lee: still water is calm, raging water destroys, and he needs both to be whole.

"Fighting just completes me."

Watch the fights: https://watch.mmafutures.com
Fighter profiles, records and fight alerts: https://fan.mmafutures.com

See tomorrow's stars today.