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Sammy Vasquez dead at age 35
By Zach Arnold | December 1, 2007
The Fight Network is reporting tonight that Houston-area fighter Sammy Vasquez has died.
Our condolences go out to the Vasquez family.
Luke Thomas comments. MMA Opinion comments. Adam Swift comments. Steve Sievert comments.
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At the age of 36 and beyond in Texas, it is required that an applicant for a fighter’s license go through a litany of additional tests. These include and EKG and an EEG. One has to wonder if Sammy would still be alive if the age cutoff had been 35.
http://www.license.state.tx.us/sports/box001.pdf
Unfortunate to say the least. I hate to say it but MMA is somewhat in it’s infancy and now with its booming popularity and the exponential number of events/fights that are occurring, this was inevitably going to happen and unfortunately it will happen again.
My condolences go out to the Vasquez family.
However, I do not understand why this is being reported as MMA’s first documented fatality. Has everyone forgotten poor Doug Dredge?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Dedge
It is sanctioned MMA’s 1st death. Safeguards in the U.S. worked for Dredge. He wasn’t allowed to fight here. That’s why he went to Ukraine.
I did not care for Luke Thomas’ article at all. First, ease up on the SAT words. Not necessary to prove your point. Secondly, were you waiting for someone to die to put that out? I don’t mean for that to sound macabre. But in all honesty everyone involved in the sport knew a death would come eventually. The safeguards in place are very good. But this is a contact sport and in all contact sports there is the possibility (made as slim as possible by rules and regulations) that there will be tragedy. Every year kids die playing High School football from heat strokes and traumatic neck injuries. Even pro football players have died recently. Boxing loses a number of guys each year. There’s no one calling to outlaw football and the anti-boxing crowd isn’t taken seriously by anybody.
Let’s hope we never have another death in MMA. But ours is a safe sport with few serious injuries in comparison to other combat sports.
Condolences to the Vasquez family.
Condolences to the Vasquez family.
These ma and pa organizations should be outlawed and only legit bodies such as the UFC, IFL, or EliteXC (to a lesser degree) should be allowed a promoter’s license in the US.
Let’s hope there is no media backlash and that the NBC and/or CBS negotiations don’t fall through due to these tragic events…
“These ma and pa organizations should be outlawed and only legit bodies such as the UFC, IFL, or EliteXC (to a lesser degree) should be allowed a promoter’s license in the US.”
Are you serious? That’s not a good idea AT ALL. I’m sorry, but that is a TERRIBLE and narrow-minded idea. If you get rid of indy-level companies, where are fighters going to fight if they aren’t in the other major companies? Where are these major companies going to find new fighters? It’s a damn shame that this fellow has died, and I feel awful for his family, but you really are sounding like an anti-MMA person right now.
Should Independent pro wrestling companies cease to exist because they aren’t WWE or TNA? Should only Don King and Bob Arum be allowed to promote boxing events? Should only the NFL and Arena League exist in American football? Should double and single A leagues in baseball cease to exist? What kind of MMA fan are you?
So you are saying that companies like Superbrawl (or whatever they are calling themselves now), Ring Of Fire, WEC (which is owned by Zuffa), IFC, etc, should cease to exist, just because they are smaller companies?
Oh, and if you are expecting an apology from me for the way I am sounding, forget it. Because of your narrow-minded opinion, that would mean less guys would get less work, and that is less money to be made.
Mr Roadblock,
It’s not enough to point to the danger inherent in other sports. When someone dies in any sport, or any human activity for that matter, a response is justified to reexamine the activity and study how further death can be avoided.
Luke Thomas is readying us for the coming period of MMA undergoing this process of revision. It’s going to be tough and, as an infant and “brutal” sport, MMA is vulnerable. How we conduct ourselves during this period will have longterm impact on our sport.
We should be open-minded about the legitimate criticism that comes, and braced to combat the illegitmate hate we’ll get. And importantly, we need to demonstrate that we are guided by concern for the athletes, not cold indifference.
Good luck.
i was there at the fight and sammy went to revolution dojo where i train, my deepest condolences go out to him and his family
I’d like to echo Klown’s sentiments regarding the relevance of not only the Luke Thomas comments, but on the idea of being being open minded to criticism, combating blatant lies w/ some sense of intelligence and class, and having our hearts and heads in the right place when it comes to the fighters. Klown is so completely on in his statements here in the comment section.
What exactly do you guys suggest be done that isn’t already being done?
This is the exact reason that some of the sanctioning regions have such stringent standards in terms of posting bonds, having insurance, and sanctioning (or refusing to sanction thereby banning) amateur and “smoker” events.
People do die though. It kind of happens. His body will decompose and his proteins will return to the earth. However, I’m sure that his memory will live on with his family and the fighters and fans that he interacted with during his life. Not a bad trade off.
I Drove from New Orleans To Houston to attend the Renegade Fight and watched Sammy”s head being slammed into the support post and im sure this is when Sammy was injured and from what im reading it seems like someone is attempting to turn away from the facts with the first being the sport is Dangerous just like any other sport we should be thinking on the level of a Sammy vasquez fund raiser to help his wife Sandra deal with the medical bills as she faces raising their 7 year old Son alone! With literally thousands of fights under its belt the sport of MMA while bloody has only seen a total of 2 Deaths with sammy being the first Death In America. Sammy loved the sport and had he recovered im sure he would have returned to doing what he loved.