MIXED MARTIAL ARTS fighter Josh Samman passed away today. He was 28.
Samman, a native of Florida, had been in a coma since last Thursday when he was found unresponsive at the Tallahassee home of his friend, Troy Kirkingburg, who was pronounced dead at the scene.
Three days earlier, Samman had tweeted news that he had just signed an agreement for his next fight, which was due to be against Oluwale Bambgose at UFC Fight Night 102 in Albany on 9 December.
The news of Samman’s passing was confirmed today by several US-based MMA media outlets, including MMAFighting, who reported that a cause of death is not currently known, according to Craig Mallak of Broward County Medical Examiner and Trauma Services.
Mallak told MMAFighting’s Marc Raimondi that the Medical Examiner’s office will not administer a toxicology report as Samman survived for days after being found and “there are no suitable specimens to test”, so a definitive cause of death may not be found.
Samman was breathing and had a pulse when he was found by police, who had been alerted by a friend who initially made the discovery. A police statement released on Monday explained that they had responded to ”a call of a possible drug overdose”.
A middleweight fighter, Samman made his professional MMA debut in 2007 at the age of 19. He reached the UFC in 2013 having made it to the semi-finals of The Ultimate Fighter, before going on to compete five times for the organisation.
He began his time with the UFC with three consecutive stoppage wins at the expense of Kevin Casey, Eddie Gordon and Caio Magalhaes. His first taste of defeat in the UFC came via submission against Tamdan McCrory last December, and his most recent outing was a TKO loss against Tim Boetsch on 13 July.
An immensely popular character among his peers, Samman was also a talented writer. In addition to writing for UFC.com and several prominent MMA websites, he penned a memoir – The Housekeeper: Love, Death, and Prizefighting — in which he detailed his struggles with addiction and the loss of his girlfriend, Hailey Bevis, who died in a car accident in 2013 — after which Samman took an 18-month break from fighting.
Samman also promoted his own MMA events, at which Troy Kirkingburg worked as the announcer.
