Chris Colbert's choice of hair colors his way of giving back

NOTEBOOK

Chris Colbert can be brash but he has a soft side.

Take his hair color, for example. The fact his hair will be bright orange when he steps into the ring to fight Tugstsogt Nyambayar on Saturday in Carson, Calif., isn’t a mere fashion statement. It’s part of his color-coded efforts to bring attention to various causes.

The orange represents multiple sclerosis, which afflicted a gym mate of Colbert’s in New Jersey.

Other colors he has dyed his hair: pink for breast cancer, green for epilepsy, red for sickle cell anemia and gold for childhood cancer.

“I’m going to continue [doing this] … if my hair don’t fall off,” he said during the final news conference before the fight at Dignity Health Sports Park (Showtime).

Colbert (15-0, 6 KOs) said that in this fight he’s honoring his gym mate, who he identified as Dave.

“One of my boys in the gym back in Jersey, he has it,” Colbert said. “… He just came up to me and we started talking. He was telling me a story of how he was paralyzed … as a kid. He has MS. I saw him in the gym two days later. I saw him walking on the Stairmaster for an hour.

“I thought, ‘Wow. He was paralyzed and he’s on a Stairmaster for an hour.’ There are no excuses I can make [not] to come into the gym. I’m perfectly healthy. I should never have an excuse for not working out and being in the gym.”

Real reason? Nyambayar (12-1, 9 KOs) jumped at the chance last week to replace the injured Yuriorkis Gamboa as the opponent for Colbert, one of the hottest young fighters in the world.

The Los Angeles-based Mongolian is moving up from 126 pounds to 130 and will have had limited time to prepare but he couldn’t pass up such a high-profile opportunity, they type of which doesn’t come around often.

Colbert believes there’s another reason Nyambayar is taking such a big risk.

“You have to remember [that] COVID just happened,” he said. “So they need the money. You know where I’m going with this. People need money [because they couldn’t] fight for a long time. I understand why he took the fight.”

Nyambayar, sitting next to Colbert, didn’t respond to that comment but he made it clear that he isn’t showing up simply for a paycheck. The 2012 Olympic silver medalist is confident he can acquit himself well.

Said the underdog: “I believe in my speed, I believe in my power, I believe in the myself.”