Canada-based Bosnian Muay Thai star Denis Puric’s road to the top of the fighting world was a little different than that of your average fighter. Ahead of his upcoming battle against Jacob Smith at ONE Fight Night 21 on Prime Video on Friday, April 5, the 39-year-old has been reflecting on his move to Canada.
Puric headed to North America from war-torn Bosnia at a young age, and he found an unlikely community in the world of breakdancing upon his arrival.
“In high school, I moved to a city named Hamilton, just outside of Toronto. During that time, the city was dangerous, filled with street gangs. Growing up, I never had brothers or sisters watching over me. I’m a lone soldier. But to survive, you had to be rolling with a couple of guys because the streets were dangerous,” he said.
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“I met a couple of guys in high school, they were Southeast Asian guys. A lot of them were from Cambodia, Vietnam, and Laos. I started hanging out with these guys, then I see them start doing their breakdancing thing. So we created a breakdancing crew called ‘The Red Dragons.’ We had a lot of guys, man. We would go to places in the streets, and there would be breakdancing shows where we would compete with other crews. That was big in Hamilton.”
But it wasn’t just for fun and friendship. His new breakdancing passion was a matter of survival.
Breakdancing played a big role in making Denis Puric the person he is today
He might not be able to use his dancing skills against his next opponent Jacob Smith, but Denis Puric found safety with a breakdancing crew as a new immigrant in Canada. In the same interview, the flyweight Muay Thai contender opened up on the influence “The Red Dragons” had on him as a youngster who knew nobody when he arrived in the country.
“I was drawn to them because I felt the way they handled themselves was like a family. I saw a bunch of brothers. The way they hung out, it was always together. When they ate, they ate one meal together, whether it was one guy or 23 guys, everybody shared. That’s what drew me to them,” he said.
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“It was the way that they moved, and especially during those times, I wanted to be a part of that because it looked safe, it felt safe, and when one went down, everybody went down. So that’s how it was, survival of the fittest, and we survived because we had each other. We held it down like that.”
The ONE Championship star has earned a reputation as one of the hardest hitting strikers on the ONE roster since making his debut in 2022. “The Bosnian Menace” is riding a wave of momentum leading into ONE Fight Night 21 after his highlight-reel knockout win over Nguyen Tran Duy Nhat last December.