Josh Samman, a UFC middleweight fighter, died Wednesday, October 5, after spending a week in a coma, his manager Gary Ibarra confirmed to Fox Sports. He was 28.
According to Ibarra, Samman died in a hospital in Hollywood, Florida.
The UFC fighter was found unresponsive last Thursday, September 29, alongside his friend Troy Kirkingburg. Kirkingburg was pronounced dead at the scene. He was also 28.
Police told the Tallahassee Democrat last week that Samman had a pulse and was breathing when a friend found him. According to law enforcement, police responded to “a call of a possible drug overdose.”
Samman struggled with substance abuse in the past and chronicled his troubled life in his book The Housekeeper: Love, Death, and Prizefighting. According to MMA Fighting, Samman was depressed after his girlfriend, Hailey Bevis, died in a car crash in 2013. He reportedly felt responsible for her death as they were texting when she got into a car accident.
Broward County Medical Examiner and Trauma Services Chief Medical Examiner Craig Mallak told MMA Fighting that Samman’s cause of death is not currently known. The site reports that “the Medical Examiner’s office will not administer a toxicology report because Samman survived for days after being found and ‘there are no suitable specimens to test.’”
According to Mallak, a definitive cause of death may never be found.
Samman’s mother told Fox Sports on Monday that no heroin was found in his system, despite reports of a drug overdose.
