(Jeff Blatnick with Madeleine Genia. Photo courtesy of the author.)

By Jim Genia

Jeff Blatnick, a two-time Olympian and gold medalist in Greco-Roman wrestling in the 1984 Summer Olympics, died today at age 55 due to complications from heart surgery. It’s a blow to amateur wrestling, as Blatnick was a indefatigable coach, and it’s a blow to MMA, as Blatnick was a pioneer in the sport and widely considered to be one of the best cageside judges in the business. And if you knew the man, and were privileged enough to call him a friend, well, it isn’t so much a blow as it’s an Anderson Silva-esque knee to the solar plexus.

His accomplishments were many and awe-inspiring. His gold medal came after battling back cancer, and he only gave up competing when the cancer returned and he had to undergo chemotherapy. When the UFC came along, Blatnick became its first face of true legitimacy, working in front of the camera as a commentator (a gig he held from UFC 4 to UFC 32) and later, behind the scenes as the organization’s — and really, the sport’s — vanguard in the quest for sanctioning and mainstream acceptance. Prior to the crafting of the Unified Rules, there were the rules that Blatnick helped develop to tame the spectacle. And perhaps most notable of all, there was the name he wanted the sport to adopt: “mixed martial arts.” (Before then, it was called no-holds-barred – a barbaric throwback to the bloodsport that wound up banned throughout most of the country in the mid ’90s).

Jenson, pictured on the right (black shorts), died of a seizure after competing in an unregulated MMA event.

On May 18th, twenty-six year old Sturgis, South Dakota native Dustin Jenson competed in an unregulated Ring Wars event in South Dakota. Although Jenson was quickly submitted by a triangle choke by Hayden Hensrud, he took no significant blows to the head and remained conscious after he tapped out. However, shortly after the fight Dustin was found by another fighter having a seizure. He was rushed to Rapid City Regional Hospital, where he would eventually die on May 24th.

An autopsy has revealed that blunt force trauma suffered the week before his fight is the official cause of Dustin Jenson’s untimely demise. As The Rapid City Journal reports:

The autopsy indicated the cause of death was a subdural hemorrhage resulting from blunt force trauma to the head. A subdural hemorrhage is a collection of blood on the surface of the brain and often causes brain injury and death.

The cause was related to an injury about a week earlier, according to the autopsy. The Sheriff’s Office said there is no conclusive evidence the injury was sustained in the fight.

(Dustin Jenson, shown with his daughter Amora and wife Rebecca. Photo courtesy of his family’s GoFundMe page.)

A 26-year-old amateur MMA fighter named Dustin Jenson died last Thursday, after suffering a seizure following a triangle-choke loss to Hayden Hensrud at a Ring Wars event, May 18th in Rapid City, South Dakota. Jenson was participating in his fifth fight, and had begun competing in the sport less than a year ago. Funeral services were scheduled today at First Wesleyan Church in Sturgis. Rapid City Journal has more details:

Dustin Jenson, 26, was participating in full-contact fights at a RingWars event May 18 when he tapped out — a signal to end the fight. According to his mother-in-law, Violet Schieman, Jensen then watched the next two fights before going to the locker room area, where he suffered a seizure.

“He laid down to do his stretches, and another fighter heard a moan,” Schieman said. “He went over and saw Dustin having a seizure. They called an EMT, which took him to Rapid City Regional Hospital.”

Schieman said medical personnel determined that Jenson had increased pressure on his brain and put him in a medically induced coma before surgery was performed to relieve pressure. He was declared dead May 24 and was taken off life support the next day, Schieman said.

“He did not wake up after the surgery and was declared brain dead at 10:23 a.m.,” she said. “He remained on life support until his organs were donated.”

(Photo via the Justin Levens Remembrance Album on CombatLifestyle.com / Props to Deadspin‘s brilliant “Dead Wrestler of the Week” feature for the inspiration.)

By Ben Goldstein

All murder-suicides are shocking. Not all of them are entirely surprising.

On December 17th, 2008, UFC/WEC veteran Justin Levens and his wife Sara McLean-Levens were found dead inside their condominium in Laguna Niguel, California, both from gunshot wounds. Initial evidence suggested that Justin was the shooter. “It was a chest wound that penetrated her heart and killed her, and his was to the head,” said O. C. Sheriff Coroner’s Office spokesman Jim Amormino.

Amormino confirmed that painkillers and anti-depressants were discovered in the Levens’s home, along with the handgun Justin allegedly used to end their lives. Police had visited Justin and Sara at least twice in the previous month, once to investigate a possible drug overdose.

At the time of his death, Justin Levens was 28 years old and hadn’t won an MMA match in over two years. He’d gone 0-5 in 2007 — an agonizing year in which his close friend and IFL teammate Jeremy Williams committed suicide, also by shooting himself — and was dealt a six-month suspension by the California State Athletic Commission in July 2008 when a pre-fight drug test came back off-the-charts for the painkiller Oxymorphone. For the last five months of his life, Levens was unable to earn a living as a fighter, and fell deeper into a spiral of depression and prescription drug use.

Justin didn’t leave a suicide note. There were no signs of a struggle. He and Sara had already been dead for four days when their bodies were discovered.

(Frazier poses with his arch-rival Muhammad Ali and that reptilian motherfucker Don King. Props: Sports Illustrated)

Boxing legend Joe Frazier — whose aggressive style and notorious left hook earned him an Olympic gold medal in 1964 and an undisputed heavyweight title reign from 1970-1972 — died yesterday evening after a brief battle with liver cancer.

“The world has lost a great champion,” said Muhammad Ali, who fought Frazier three times in the ’70s, including their “Fight of the Century” first meeting (which Frazier won by unanimous decision) and their “Thrilla in Manila” rubber match (which Ali won by corner stoppage). “I will always remember Joe with respect and admiration. My sympathy goes out to his family and loved ones,” Ali added.

From 1965-1981, Smokin’ Joe racked up a professional record of 32-4-1, with 27 wins by knockout; his only losses came against Ali and George Foreman. In recent years, Frazier spent his time running a boxing gym in Philadelphia, and trained his children Marvis and Jackie, who also competed professionally in boxing.

After the jump: Ten of the best Joe Frazier videos on the Internet.

(Jack and Jake in 2004.)

Graciefighter.com passes along the bad news:

The father of Jake Shields has passed away. It was learned that he died peacefully as he slept. Jack Shields was instrumental in his son’s MMA career. He taught Jake the values of hard work and perseverance. He was always there and was a fervent supporter through Jake’s early years in wrestling and when Jake transcended to MMA.

Jack would often make the long drive from his home to watch Jake practice and was always at Jake’s fights. He was part of our team and we will miss him.

(Remember them.)

It’s true. Our year-old MMA FightPicker game — which was played so passionately by so few of you — has just become too costly to keep around, and we’re taking it to live on a farm upstate where it’ll be cared for by a nice man. So if you’ve had problems lately joining pools or getting your PotatoChips paid out, that’s why. Sincere apologies to everyone who grew to love the poor thing, and congrats to those who actually did well on it (Rampey, finland, et al.).

It’s a sad day, to be sure, but this doesn’t have to be the end of CagePotato’s foray into gaming. If you have ideas for other MMA-related games you’d like to see on CP, please let us know in the comments section. Thanks for understanding.

(Bob and Ken Shamrock, circa 1983. Photo courtesy of Knucklepit.)

Bob Shamrock, who helped raise hundreds of troubled boys at his Shamrock Ranch group home in Susanville, California, passed away yesterday at age 68 from complications due to diabetes; Shamrock had been in poor health since suffering a heart attack in September 2008. To MMA fans, Bob is best known as the man who provided Kenneth Wayne Nance (later Ken Shamrock) and Frank Alisio Juarez III (later Frank Shamrock) with stable homes, eventually adopting them as his sons.

Unhappy with a new stepfather that entered his life at age 10, Ken Nance ran away from home and immediately began getting into trouble, committing robberies to support himself and bouncing between group homes before landing at the Shamrock Ranch at age 13. Frank Juarez’s background was remarkably similar: His own experiences with an abusive stepfather spurred behavioral issues that would place him in the juvenile state system beginning at the age of 11; he also entered the Shamrock Ranch at 13. With Bob, they found the sense of order that their lives had been missing. From a press release posted last night on KenShamrock.com:

Okay, so it’s not MMA-related, per se, but for those of us who grew up on the WWF — or in the 1980s in general — it’s a sad day indeed. Legendary pro-wrestling performer/manager Captain Lou Albano (born Louis Vincent Albano) died today in Mount Vernon, New York, at the age of 76; he had been in hospice care for several weeks, battling an undisclosed illness.

Albano was best known for his work with the WWF/WWE from 1983-1996, where he appeared as a Hawaiian-shirt wearing loudmouth with rubber-bands dangling from his trademark facial piercings, and managed a laundry list of pro wrestling stars. His crossover stardom hit a peak in the mid-80s when he forged a co-promotional partnership with pop star Cyndi Lauper, appearing in four of her music videos. (Our personal favorite is the extended clip for "Goonies ‘R’ Good Enough," shown above, which also featured over-the-top cameos by Roddy Piper, the Iron Sheik, Freddie Blassie, and Andre the Giant.) Later, Albano parlayed his fame into acting roles, and released an autobiography titled Often Imitated, Never Duplicated. Rest in peace, wildman…

Just two weeks after the first death of a mixed martial artist resulting from injuries sustained in sanctioned competition, the MMA world was struck with another tragedy this weekend, as 33-year-old Ryan Gracie — the so-called “bad boy” of the Gracie clan — was found dead in a Sao Paulo jail cell Saturday morning; he had been arrested Friday night for stealing a car from a 76-year-old man at knifepoint, crashing it, then attempting to steal a motorcycle to flee from police. According to this article, Gracie did not respond to a morning roll call: “When I went to his cell, I saw him lying on his mattress,” [police inspector Paulo] Bittencourt said. “He had no pulse and a reddish liquid was coming out of his mouth. It seems to me he died of a heart attack.”

Following the arrest, Gracie’s urine showed traces of cocaine and marijuana, but the Bleacher Report (props: BloodyElbow) suggests that the illegal drugs were just the beginning:

Psychiatrist Dr. Sabino Ferreira de Faria was called by Gracie’s wife after his arrest and attended to him at the jail. The doctor has allegedly stated that he administered the following drugs to Gracie to calm him down: Haldol (a powerful antipsychotic), Fenergan (which has a side effect of sleepiness), Topamax (for Migraines), Dienpax (tranquilizers), and OmniPlex (relaxant). The doctor remained with Gracie most of the night, and was notified of Gracie’s death as he was returning home. The cause of death has not yet been released by the medical examiner.

So yeah, drug interactions were probably at play here — and if there’s any justice, Dr. “Feelgood” Ferreira will be spending some time in a Brazilian jail cell himself.

Ryan was the son of Robson Gracie (cousin of Royce Gracie), brother of Renzo Gracie, and grandson of Carlos Gracie. He held a record of 5-2 as a middleweight in the PRIDE organization; his last match was a submission victory over Yoji Anjo at PRIDE Shockwave 2004 (12/31/04). Ryan Gracie’s arrest for car-jacking wasn’t his first brush with violence. In 2000, he was arrested for stabbing someone at a Rio de Janeiro nightclub, and in 2005 he accidentally shot himself in the femur, nearly costing him the use of his leg.