Photo from mmabookings.com

A tragedy occurred this weekend that should remind us all the dangers inherent in combat sports. From Sergio Non at USA Today.com.

Michael Kirkham, 30, has become the second man known to have died in the United States from injuries sustained in a mixed martial arts fight.

Kirkham, a lightweight who was nicknamed “Tree” because he stood 6-feet-9 and weighed 155 pounds, was making his pro debut Saturday night in Aiken, S.C., after a handful of amateur fights. He was knocked out in the first round and did not regain consciousness before passing away Monday morning.

Kid Nate over at Bloodyelbow.com also wrote a piece that features a video one of Kirkhams amateur bouts. With news still forthcoming along with the autopsy it is too soon to claim what was the cause of death. Hopefully this tragedy will be a reminder to fighters, promoters, fans, managers, trainers, athletic commisions and all those involved in combat sports to be diligent in their efforts to strictly follow and adhere to safety guidelines/laws/regulations. In hopes that events like these remain the rarest of anomalies.

Rest in peace to Michael Kirkham and condolences to his friends and family.

UPDATE

From MMA Junkie,

As the South Carolina Athletic Commission conducts an inquiry into the death of MMA fighter Michael Kirkham, the trainer of his opponent is attempting to raise money for the fallen fighter and his family.

Mark Greubel, who trained and cornered Carlos Iraburo for the fight this past Saturday that took Kirkham’s life, has helped arrange donation methods to cover funeral costs and a trust fund for Kirkham’s five children.

…

Kirkham, nicknamed “Tree” for his lanky 6-foot-9 frame, fought the 145-pound Iraburo at a catchweight of 150 pounds.

Kirkham did not carry life insurance and has five children.

Greubel said there are five locations where donations can be dropped off in person: The Pizza Joint in the Georgia cities of Augusta and Evans and the S.C. city of Aiken; the Limelite Cafe in Augusta; and his gym, Greubel’s MMA, also in Augusta.

Donations can be made online via PayPal at Michael Kirkham Memorial Fund. A link to the fund is also available on http://www.greubelsmma.com.

“I think with a nationwide effort we could definitely cover his funeral costs, but my ultimate goal is to have some trust funds set up for the guy’s children,” Greubel told MMAjunkie.com.

Also from local South Carolina news channel WJBF:

According to Aiken County Coroner Tim Carlton, autopsy results confirmed that Michael Kirkham died from a subarachnoid hemorrhage of the brain due to the injuries/blows to the head he received during the MMA match. Toxicology is pending. Manner of death is to be ruled as accidental. The Aiken County Coroner’s Office is still awaiting the video of the fight from the SC Athletic Commission.

Since I personally have not medical experience I will defer to Wikipedia to explain the specific type of hemorrhage Kirkham suffered.

A Subarachnoid hemorrhage in British English) is bleeding into the subarachnoid space—the area between the arachnoid membrane and the pia mater surrounding the brain. This may occur spontaneously, usually from a ruptured cerebral aneurysm, or may result from head injury.

The last and in my opinion best event of the month is getting closer with this weekends WEC event. Here is Zuffa head honcho Dana White and USA Today’s MMA columnist Sergio Non talking about WEC 48, the future of the WEC Lightweight division and the recent debacle last weekend in Nashville at the last Strikeforce event. Link to full article.

UFC, with five weight classes, had 13 pay-per-views last year. What gives you confidence that WEC eventually can match the ratio that UFC is doing right now with pay-per-views?

There’s great fights in the WEC. Anybody that’s ever watched these guys fight on Versus knows how these guys always perform. If we did three WEC pay-per-views a year, I think people are going to be interested in buying them.

You’ve got a lightweight title fight on the card. What’s the advantage to having an overlap at 155 between WEC and UFC?

I actually think it’s kind of cool. I think eventually what we do is, we’re going to continue to add to lighter weights, and you’ll end up seeing these (WEC) guys go into the UFC, the 155 pounders.

So once you add flyweight or divisions like that, you can move WEC’s lightweights and move them into UFC, is what you’re saying?

Yup.

While talk of the flyweight division is always nice, it does come through bittersweet since the talks of adding the 125lb weight class has been hinted at for almost a year. The talks of absorbing the WEC’s lightweights sounds promising but could end up being problematic with the 155lb division already being the biggest weight class in the UFC as it is.

With Zuffa taking the slow and steady route towards building the WEC brand. I still believe they would be better off going with the strategy I suggested in an earlier post and just add the lighter weight classes to the UFC and keep the WEC around as their very own farm/minor league promotion for up and comers and over the hill stars they don’t want other promotions to snatch up. This idea has been mentioned by many other blogs and rings of commons sense but time will tell if the advice will be taken into consideration.

The biggest and most important question was never touched upon in the interview. What is Zuffa going to do if PPV is not a viable option for the WEC? We can only wait until after this weekend to get a definitive answer.