SINGAPORE -- While other families would file into church on Sundays, 12-year-old Justin Leong worshipped at the altar of weekend morning boxing matches. "And that was kind of our religion," recalled Leong. He and his mother would attend bouts in East London, afterward obsessively picking apart the fighters' strategies.
On a trip to Las Vegas in 2013, Leong stumbled on the spectacle of mixed martial arts. Within months, $2 million seed capital from his father in hand, the then-27-year-old entrepreneur had set up MMA sports entertainment company Rebel Fighting Championship in Singapore.