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The face of a (alleged) shooter
By Zach Arnold | December 19, 2008

Some updates on the death of Justin Levens and his wife. First, The LA Times reports the following:
A handgun was found near Justin Levens’ body, and Amormino said if it’s established to be a murder-suicide, the MMA fighter was “definitely the shooter.”
KTLA reports that Levens and his wife were due in court for an assault charge, but that their bodies were found on the same day of the court date. Read the article for further background.
Sherdog reports that drugs were supposedly found at the crime scene:
Authorities also took into custody what appeared to be prescribed painkillers and anti-depressant medication, though they were not found in the standard-marked pharmaceutical containers denoting whom they belonged to.
Fox 11 has more on the drug situation. ABC News has a profile article on the background of Justin Levens and how he got into MMA. The article immediately tries to tie in the Chris Benoit situation. AOL Fan House has more on the media coverage of this story.
Topics: Media, MMA, Zach Arnold | 10 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
The difference between Levens and Benoit’s tragedies is Benoit was top story news instantly because he was a huge star. I’m a longtime MMA fan and after I realized after a few seconds it wasn’t Justin Eilers I had no clue who they were talking about. At worst after a day or two of press, cranky newspaper MMA haters will reference his name once in a while. Dana will say “I don’t even remember employing the guy” and brush it off. Rampage’s Carmageddon incident will be worse to PR in the long run.
Get real if your a true mma fan than you know who Justin Levens is. This is a terrible situation no matter who is involved….GOD BLESS BOTH FAMILIES..RIP
“Get real if your a true mma fan than you know who Justin Levens is. This is a terrible situation no matter who is involved….GOD BLESS BOTH FAMILIES..RIP”
I don’t know, sometimes it is hard to remember all of the mediocre fighters of the world. It doesn’t matter if somebody was on a UFC undercard, as there have been so many fighters who have cycled through UFC undercards and ended up as nobodies.
I’m not going to argue the horrors of it, as it is awful, but Justin Levens; well known fighter is ridiculous.
No, I don’t watch the minor leagues. I may have seen him fight in the IFL but he didn’t stand out to me apparently. He was a nobody, a borderline can. He was so outclassed in the UFC big leagues it wasn’t even funny. Plus murderers don’t deserve to be remembered anyway. After his 15 minutes of infamy end Monday, he’ll be a minor footnote.
Fuck him, RIP for his wife.
What kind of douche bag kills a woman then kills himself?
no sympathy from me for him. I just fell sorry for his wife for falling for that fucking douche bag
The KTLA article doesn’t exactly paint the wife in flattering terms. No excuse for the murder, but clearly there was trouble brewing with the drugs and the assault charge in court.
This is a tragady and should never happen and nobody knows the situation so u should never say fuk him. U dont know!! He deserves respect cuz he steped in the cage and gave his all..To say hes a borderline can is rude and dissrespectful to the dead and bad karma..RIP to him and his wife and my regards to there familys.I hope they get through this with the help of god.
You know what is a tragedy? Weapon’s grammar. Actually I think it seems we know the situation well enough to say that the both of them were troubled drug addicted thugs who got fucked up and happened to have a gun around them. What happened is surely a tragedy, and I really do feel awful for their families, but let’s not get naive and unrealistic here.
You’re a huge MMA fan and you don’t remember Justin Levens? He was Evan Tanner’s last win….on the undercard of Tito/Forrest if I remember correctly.
Of course I saw the Tanner fight, and I’m sure I saw at least one of his IFL fights. But the point was he did not make an impression on me.
And Mike Bell, a former WWE jobber featured in the Bigger, Faster, Stronger documentary on steroids died yesterday. If the aforementioned MMA bloggers were pro wrestling bloggers they’d be harping on this being the end of pro wrestling. Unless someone dies in the Octagon, the UFC has nothing to worry about regarding deaths. That’s horrible and jaded, but it’s true. But I’m sure a lot of MMA fighters are going to die young in the future like their pro wrestling and boxing counterparts. Any group of people who live that hard will die young no matter what their jobs are.