Unfortunate events happened where MMA fighters died fighting in the ring. These deaths didn’t happen in the best fighting MMA promotion, UFC, but rather in some lower-tier MMA organizations. Even though MMA is a high-risk sport and there have been MMA deaths over the years, for instance, more deaths have resulted in boxing matches.
Most of the deaths during the fight (MMA or in boxing matches) were a result of a complication of a KO or TKO. Sometimes, there were underlying health conditions and issues, and the punch acted as a trigger.
5 MMA Fighters Who Died Fighting:
Sam Vazquez (2007, complications of blunt trauma)
Tyrone Mims (2012, unknown)
Michael Kirkham (2010, brain injuries)
Rondel Clark (2017, muscle injury)
Donshay White (2017, heart disease)
Related: MMA’s Most Vicious Knockout Artists – Ranking the Best 5 KO Specialists Of All Time
Sam Vazquez
Back in 2007, Sam Vazquez died in Houston, Texas, as a result of complications that he got from an MMA fight in the ring. This is also the first case of a MMA death in the US.
His fatal fight happened when he was part of an event organized by the MMA promotion called Renegades Extreme Fighting. The 35-year lost via KO that night after three rounds.
Nothing seemed to be out of the ordinary until Vasquez went unconscious and had to be taken to a nearby hospital. He was diagnosed with a subdural hemorrhage and underwent surgery where they had to remove a part of his skull to decrease the brain swelling. That wasn’t effective, so they put a tube in his skull so they could drain the cerebral spinal fluid, allowing the brain to swell with no extra damage.
Unfortunately, Vasquez soon fell into a coma and died two days later, on November 30th, 2007.
Tyrone Mims
Tyrone Mims, age 30, participated in an event organized by an amateur MMA promotion, Conflict MMA, at Point IV in Mount Pleasant in the state of South Carolina. The fight was held on August 11th, 2012.
Everything was going well until Mims felt uneasy in the second round. The referee stopped the fight because Tyrone couldn’t defend himself properly. The physician gave him a check-up, and Mims seemed fine, only a little fatigued. Before he entered the locker room, Mims passed out as teammates held him.
Mims was transferred to the hospital of the Medical University of South Carolina, where they declared him dead at 9:27 pm after multiple attempts to revive him. The cause of death hasn’t been discovered to this day.
Michael Kirkham
Another fighter who tragically lost his life while fighting in the MMA ring was 30-year-old Michael Kirkham. He was a part of the event organized by Dash Entertainment/King MMA in Aiken, South Carolina. Kirkham was knocked out in the first round, with this opponent, Iraburo, landing extra strikes while Michael was lying on the canvas.
Kirkham never regained consciousness after being knocked out. 48 hours later, on June 28th, 2010, doctors pronounced him deceased due to a subarachnoid hemorrhage, which is bleeding between the surrounding tissues of the brain and the brain itself.
Rondel Clark
On August 12th, 2017, 26-year-old Rondel Clark was competing at Cage Titans XXXV fight night in Plymouth, Massachusets. His opponent was Ryan Dunn.
Just as two minutes passed in round 3, Clark couldn’t fight anymore as he was visibly fatigued, and the referee stopped the fight. Clark lost via TKO to Dunn. Doctors checked on him after the fight, and he was sent to a hospital in Boston, where his kidneys started to fail.
Three days after the fight, on August 15th, 2017, Clark died due to rhabdomyolysis, which causes quick deterioration of muscle tissue. Doctors also found out that his kidney failure was caused by severe dehydration.
Donshay White
Aged 37, Donshay White fought Ricky Muse on July 16th, 2017, at the Hardrock MMA 90 event located in Louisville, Kentucky. In this heavyweight fight, White lost in the second round via TKO. Also, he hasn’t fought since 2015, before the fight.
Sometime after the fight, Donshay collapsed and was transferred to a hospital. Doctors couldn’t do anything but pronounce death at 9:02 pm. The cause of White’s death was hypertensive heart disease, and later, the autopsy showed that he didn’t take any medication to deal with hypertension or high blood pressure.
MMA fighters are fierce combatants who put their bodies and lives on the line in their bouts. Because of that, there are rules and regulations made specifically to protect fighters from dangerous scenarios. Some rules are strict and logical, and some rules are weird and unusual, yet they make sense.
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