(‘Reports of my demise have been greatly exaggerated, you pussies.’)

The bad news is, we’ve been duped.  The good news is, we can now resume making insensitive jokes about Kimo Leopoldo.  Yes, it turns out that Kimo isn’t really dead after all, or at the very least has been resurrected to walk the earth as some kind of terrifying zombie.  Despite premature eulogies from the New York Daily News, the Orange County Register, and us, among many others, Leopoldo is said to be alive and reasonably well, though that’s about as much information as anyone seems to have or need about him and his current whereabouts.

The whole thing is being chalked up to an internet prank spun out of control, which will probably prompt some hollow discussion on the nature and reliability of new media before we all move on the next nipple slip video, but in the meantime, imagine what Kimo must be feeling right now. 

For a few hours even portions of the world that never knew or cared that he existed turned their eyes toward him, if only to capitalize on the search engine value of a headline featuring some combination of the words "UFC fighter" and "dead."  Now that they know he’s still alive they’ll go back to ignoring him, and he’ll have to reconcile himself with the strange feeling of finding out what people would have said about him if he had died today. 

Considering how often drugs and his recent arrest were mentioned in all the stories floating around the internet this afternoon, it’s probably not going to result in any kind of happy epiphany.  Regardless, welcome back to the world of the living, Kimo.  Ain’t it something?