Heavyweight title challenger Ben Reiter donating CFFC 79 purse to Beat the Streets Philadelphia

Some athletes insist they compete for reasons bigger than themselves, hoping to achieve more than personal glory or financial gain. Ben Reiter is one of those guys. He just happens to also be the kind of guy to put his money where his mouth is, as well.

"I'm donating my winnings from this fight to Beat the Streets Philadelphia," Reiter said. "I haven't competed in three years, and I wanted to make sure that this comeback fight is something more meaningful than my own personal goal or a paycheck or anything like that, so I'm hoping that this can be like a symbol that inspires some others to help out and support, too."

The Cage Fury Fighting Championships' vacant heavyweight title will be on the line when Reiter (17-2-1) meets Dana White's Contender Series veteran Shawn Teed (5-2-1) on Saturday at CFFC 79, which streams live on UFC FIGHT PASS from Hard Rock Live at Etess Arena in Atlantic City.

It's Reiter's first trip to the cage in nearly three years, after he took a significant amount of time away from the sport to help relocate his wife and children from Peru to the U.S.

"I moved from living in Peru full-time back to Philadelphia, where I went to school, and I took a job opening with Beat the Streets Philadelphia, which is really an organization I've been following for a long time, and I wanted to get involved in and be able to contribute to and help out," Reiter said. "So I was onboarding full-time there, and at the time, I was dealing with the immigration process of getting my wife and kids here. That took way longer than we expected it to, and we had plenty of challenges, so working through that, during that time I was going back and forth a lot.

"Any time I had free time, I'd travel back to Peru, and I was living far away from my family. So there were all those challenges, and I just didn't have time to train the way you need to train to be able to compete at a high level."

So how did Reiter, a New York native and former collegiate wrestler at the University of Pennsylvania, end up in Peru to start?

Charity, of course.

"I went down to South America after college," Reiter said. "I was working with an educational non-profit. I was going to be there for a yearlong project helping in this community center. During that time, I met my wife. My two kids were born in Peru, and I just got settled in with the culture, made friends, and found a great coach there and got plugged in.

"I was training before that, and I wrestled my whole life, but I took my first professional fight in Peru, and the first half of my career was competing for Inka Fighting Championship and other organizations across South America."

Training under Peruvian MMA veteran Ivan Iberico, Reiter worked alongside the likes of "The Ultimate Fighter: Latin America 2" winner Enrique Barzola, as well as future UFC fighters Jesus Pinedo and Claudio Puelles, giving him a first-hand look at the rise of an emerging South American powerhouse.

"Before, no one in Peru was thinking about getting to that level," Reiter said. "Ivan Iberico has taken these fighters from day one and helped bring them to the big shows. I'm grateful I was a part of that during that time when these Peruvian fighters were emerging and making history for their country, so that was really cool to be a part of that, and to help contribute to that and pitch in."

To aid in his own development, Reiter did his camps at New Mexico's famed Jackson Wink MMA Academy, and he eventually enjoyed a four-fight stint under the Bellator banner before taking an extended hiatus to relocate back to the U.S.

Now, Reiter says, he's finally got everything sorted, and he's anxious to return to fighting. Of course, he's also got charity in mind, as well, and he hopes to use his next bout as a way of raising awareness for Beat the Streets Philadelphia, an organization that "uses the sport of wrestling combined with mentorship and academic support to serve under-resourced student youth in the Philadelphia area."

"I just really believe in the student-athletes that I work with here in Philadelphia, and I just want to try and raise awareness," Reiter said. "Hopefully anybody that reads this or sees this hears what's going on, maybe they're interested in what's going on, so I just wanted to encourage them to check out our website and consider either just following us on social media or maybe even making a donation in my honor. That would be really appreciated."

At 32, Reiter isn't re-entering the sport of MMA as a one-off. In fact, he has dreams of becoming a world champion in one of the sport's biggest promotions.

"I've got five-to-eight years or so to make some big waves in the sport," Reiter said. "So right now, I just train every day with the thought of competing against the best in the world and being ready to face a world champion – being ready to just go against anyone."

But giving back will always remain a top priority, and as Reiter is proving by donating his winnings at CFFC 79, "The Hunter" isn't just paying lip service to his cause.

"I think that's our deeper purpose on this earth: Look after each other," Reiter said. "There's different ways to do that, and I think we can all do that in some way, even if it's just with our immediate circle and our family and friends, but I've always felt the most fulfilled in my life when I'm actively seeking to fulfill that purpose."