Remember Bumfights, the deeply depressing 2002 video featuring homeless men goaded into doing stupid things like fighting each other and getting "Bumfights" tattoos? Well, the video's biggest "star" isn't a bum anymore—though he still has his infamous tattoo.

Rufus Hannah, who along with his best friend Donnie Brennan was featured in the original Bumfights, and who has the word "bumfights" tattooed across his knuckles, is now a property manager in San Diego, working for Barry Soper, a real estate developer. He's married to an "old flame," with whom he'd already had two children, and he's eight years sober. He's also the subject of a San Diego Union-Tribune profile.

Much of that is thanks to Soper, who helped Hannah write a book—hence the renewed interest—called A Bum Deal, about Hannah's life and his work as an advocate for the homeless (he's currently trying to get legislation passed that would regard crimes against the homeless as hate crimes). The two met next to a dumpster, according to the Union-Tribune:

Soper, 65, doesn't usually pay much attention to his trash receptacles, but someone had defecated next to this particular one a day earlier, so he was watchful. When he caught Hannah inside the Dumpster that morning, he got mad. "Get the hell out of here," Soper said. "You're ruining our canning route," Hannah snapped back. Urged by a neighbor to help the transients rather than run them off, Soper hired the two to do odd jobs around the complex. Their work was good. He hired them again.

Interestingly enough, Soper met and hired Hannah before Hannah ended up on the video series that gave him any fame. In fact, Soper "rescued" Hannah and Brennan from the filmmakers after the two men called Hannah's boss from a Las Vegas apartment building where they'd been "stashed." That's the kind of friend you keep around, huh?

[San Diego Union Tribune]