Fighter’s toughest foe won
Memoir details battle with drugs
In a sport in which bombastic Conor McGregor reigns as king and charismatic Ronda Rousey remains the biggest crossover star, a lesser-known mixed martial arts fighter might have been the most intriguing of all.
Josh Samman, a 28-year-old middleweight with a 12-4 record, played chess and guitar. Climbed mountains and ran a marathon. Spent time in rehab and jail. Dropped out of school and moved out on his own at 16.
He wrote a memoir, too, although the book did not include the final chapter.
On Sept. 29, a day before Samman was set to begin training for his next Ultimate Fighting Championship bout, he was found unresponsive and his roommate was found dead in Samman’s bedroom at their
house in Hollywood, Fla.
Samman spent six days in a coma before he was declared dead.
He died of a probable drug overdose, according to Broward County medical examiner Craig Mallak, who told USA TODAY Sports that he suspects Samman used heroin. A drug screen performed by the hospital where Samman was taken showed cocaine, marijuana and Xanax in Samman, but the hospital disposed of the blood sample before the medical examiner could perform the more sophisticated toxicology report, Mallak said.
A toxicology report for Samman’s roommate, MMA ring announcer Troy Kirkingburg, showed heroin, cocaine and alcohol, according to Mallak, who said it’s reasonable to assume the two men were using the same drugs.
Daniel Valverde, one of Samman’s trainers, said he was stunned in part because Samman was preparing for a bout on Friday’s UFC Fight Night 102 card in Albany, N.Y. It was an opportunity for Samman to get back on track after having lost his last two fights.
“That guy had a lot of potential, man,” Valverde said. “Josh was a natural fighter. He was born to fight.” ‘FIERCE ONE’ Samman, who grew up in Tallahassee, was the child of divorced parents, a Palestinian father and a Southern mother who named their only son Joshua Kaleb.
“Kaleb means fierce one,” said his mother, Cheryl Phoenix, who during an interview last week showed one of her son’s elementary school projects that suggested they’d picked an apt middle name.
On the cover page entitled “When I grow up,” Samman drew a picture of himself as a fighter, wearing a championship belt and raising his muscled left arm triumphantly.
But in his memoir published this year, Samman detailed how drug abuse led him astray.
Samman, a latch-key kid whose father lived out of state and whose mother worked full time as a social worker, wrote that he tried marijuana for the first time at 11. By 17, he had used LSD, cocaine, Ecstasy and mushrooms, according to the memoir, in which Samman wrote that he was booked for burglary, grand theft and resisting arrest.
It was his mother who called police after Samman stole money from a neighborhood drug dealer, according to the memoir. Samman wrote that his mother forced him to go to rehab and, when he continued to use drugs, found him another place to live.
She’d kicked him out of the house at 16. Soon after, he dropped out of school.
Samman sold marijuana to help pay the bills, according to his book, and then stumbled into a gym that taught mixed martial arts fighting. Soon he was hooked on something other than drugs.
“It saved his life,” his mother said.
Samman continued to use drugs but managed to stay focused when training for fights, according to his memoir. In 2007, at 19, he won his first pro bout. He was 9-2 five years later but was growing frustrated.
With a friend, he started what became one of the top MMA promotion companies in Florida. But his career in the octagon appeared to have stalled. He auditioned three times for
The Ultimate Fighter, a reality TV show that was the surest ticket to the UFC. Then in 2013, on the fourth try, he landed a spot.
In the single-elimination tournament, he won his first three fights, including a victory against Jimmy Quinlan that apparently drew favorable reviews from boxing legend Mike Tyson.
Tyson, a fan of MMA, approached Samman after the fight and, according to Samman’s memoir, said, “You’s a real violent fight a, Mr. Josh. I liked that.” LOVE SOFTENED SAMMAN Not everybody liked what they saw in Samman. He corrected people’s grammar. He embarrassed them for using words incorrectly. He made sure everyone knew just how smart he was — perhaps, friends say, because Samman was insecure that he didn’t have a high school diploma.
Samman, a gifted student before falling behind because of drug problems, had a GED and took classes briefly at Tallahassee Community College before turning his attention to mixed martial arts.
On The Ultimate Fighter, he was depicted as villainous. But he was beginning what friends described as a personal transformation.
Hailey Bevis, one of Samman’s former girlfriends, had come back into his life after battling a drug problem that led to an overdose on heroin. Before long, she moved in with Samman, who had relocated to the Miami area. Samman marveled at the way she beautified their house, and he experienced what his mother and friends described as a transformation.
“He was in love, and Hailey showed him it was OK to love people and to not be harsh with them and to be more accepting,” Samman’s mother said. “He was more patient with me.
“The rough edges had sort of been taken off. It really did change him.”
Although he was still the same thrill seeker, climbing 14,000 feet to the peak of Maroon Bells in Colorado, Samman began to show more interest in those around him. He spent two days coaching blind wrestlers at a camp in New York. He mentored fighters at MMA Masters gym in Miami. He volunteered at the local humane society and took more responsibility for his actions.
Like the time he accidentally pulled the handle off a friend’s microwave and gave the friend a new one for Christmas.
“He didn’t know his own strength,” said Chad Boss, who got the new microwave.
But tragedy threatened to break Samman. On Aug. 30, 2013, Bevis was driving home and, while texting with Samman, hydroplaned off a highway, crashed into a tree and was killed.
Plunging into despair, Samman wrote in his memoir, he bought a pistol, pressed it against his forehead and imagined blowing his brains out.
“Some nights the last thing I remember before dozing off is swallowing a cocktail of opiates and benzos,” Samman wrote in his memoir. “I was playing my own game of Russian roulette, walking a fine line in the name of plausible deniability, should I drift off into a sleep I didn’t wake up from.”
Journaling about the dark thoughts and his feelings helped pull him out of depression, according to Samman’s book, and at a friend’s suggestion he decided to write the book in honor of Bevis. Before he even started, he began to envision a final chapter — getting back into the octagon in 2014 and winning the fight for Bevis.
The fight took place Dec. 6, Bevis’ birthday.
In the second round, Samman unleashed a head kick that knocked out Eddie Gordon and left Samman sobbing in the octagon. During the year leading up to the fight, Samman also had lost his stepfather, grandmother and beloved dog, Juice.
He wrote about the tragedy in his memoir, The Housekeeper: Love, Death & Prizefighting, which was published in April. Gerard Roxburgh, who edited the book, said it suddenly felt as if Samman thought his own story was over.
In his last fight, Samman ignored his trainers’ instructions and suffered a TKO loss to Tim Boetsch. Roxburgh said Samman called him about two months later and said he’d accidentally snorted heroin after mistaking it for cocaine.
Roxburgh said he suspected Samman continued using heroin — the drug on which Hailey once overdosed, according to Samman’s book.
“You’re not smarter than heroin,” Roxburgh said he yelled at Samman. He also said he urged Samman to seek counseling.
Like the Broward County medical examiner, Roxburgh said he suspects Samman was using heroin when he suffered the probable drug overdose.
Samman’s mother said she doesn’t think her son used heroin that day, but added, “In my heart, I just said, ‘You know, he just wants to go home with Hailey. That’s all he wants to do.’ ”
A sentence on the cover of Samman’s memoir reads: “A story of heartbreak, triumph, and what it means to find redemption after losing it all.”
But with Samman absent from his scheduled fight Friday night, his life story has turned into something else — a cautionary tale.