Trokon Dousuah, surrounded by the black steel of a mixed martial arts cage, is declared the victor as the arena thrums with cheers from the crowd.
Moments later, spectators groan and gasp as he is carried out of the octagon, struggling to stand.
The amateur event, featuring competitors new to mixed martial arts, would be Dousuah’s final fight.
The 33-year-old was taken from Saturday’s event at the community centre in Enoch, a First Nation community on Edmonton’s western outskirts, to hospital where he later died.
Known as T to his friends, Dousuah leaves behind a pregnant wife and two young children.
The weekend tragedy is now raising questions about current regulations to govern combat sports in Alberta and what changes are needed to maintain fighter safety.
The circumstances of Dousuah’s death remain under investigation by the RCMP and the provincial government.
‘No continuity in regulations’
Shara Vigeant, an Edmonton-based MMA trainer and former fighter, said the death is a “black mark” on combat sports in Alberta.
“Someone lost their life,” she said in an interview with CBC News. “It enrages me because this was so preventable.
“This is what happens when there is not one commission and there’s no continuity in regulations.”
Vigeant trained a boxer who would years later die of injuries sustained in the ring, Tim Hague, whose fatal match in Edmonton in 2017 sent shockwaves through the Canadian combative sports community.
She said Alberta has failed to learn from the previous tragedy, which prompted widespread calls for the province to establish a single regulating body for combative sports in the province.
“MMA has a higher risk and with a higher risk there has to be better policing and better standards and there isn’t right now,” she said.
An Edmonton MMA fighter died after winning his Ultra MMA match on the Enoch Cree Nation. Another fighter, who was expected to fight that night, seeks answers as to what happened. As CBC’s Travis McEwan reports, the death comes weeks after a fatality report recommended regulating fights in Alberta.
“When I hear of another athlete or a competitor losing their life, it upsets me and angers me because nobody protected him. Nobody protected him and he needed protecting.”
Dousuah was fighting with Ultra MMA at an event that promised beginners with no previous experience the chance to compete in a charity event following eight weeks of free training.
Questions raised over format
Ryan Ford, a professional boxer and MMA champion, questioned whether the event should have ever taken place and whether the novice competitors on the card that night should have been allowed to fight.
“It tarnishes the name of combat sport,” said Ford, a professional competitor since 2007, who has spent years training new fighters from Wolf House, his Edmonton-based gym.
“Combat sports already has a bad rep because people think that it’s very brutal,” Ford said. “But these people, these individuals that were on this fight card, they’re not fighters.”
Ford said the competitors were not adequately trained. It can take years, not hours of training, before a fighter is ready to compete, he said.
“It’s very stupid for an organization to host an event where you get normal people with no experience to train for two sessions a week … and then to throw them in a cage to fight,” Ford said.
“It’s just ridiculous. It takes a lot more than that to get into a ring or cage.”
To prepare for the event, they trained with coaches in Edmonton, two hours a week for two months. Only half the sessions were mandatory.
Competitors who trained alongside Dousuah to make their debut on Saturday’s fight card have also questioned whether the coaching they received was adequate.
The event organizer has declined to answer questions from CBC about the safety concerns but instead issued a statement offering their condolences to the fighter’s family.
Ford, who watched footage of Saturday’s event, wonders how competitors were allowed to fight without shin guards, oversized gloves or headgear as is required for other amateur bouts. He said the lack of protective gear and inexperience left fighters vulnerable.
He said Alberta must adopt more stringent rules on which agencies and promoters are allowed to stage fights in the province and event organizers must be held accountable when things go wrong.
“You have two people going out there to hurt each other. That’s why they call it the ‘hurt business.’ It’s just the nature of the sport.
“There’s always a risk when you step in that ring. But it’s way more high-risk for someone who has zero experience.”
Pressure rising
Alberta is the only jurisdiction in Canada that allows municipalities to sanction events, an approach critics have described as piecemeal and ineffective.
Erik Magraken, a combat sports regulatory lawyer in British Columbia and a licensed MMA judge, describes Alberta as the “wild west” for combative sports regulations.
He said Dousuah’s death — the first in MMA he is aware of in Canada — demands action.
“There’s pressure on the government to no longer put their head in the sand,” he said.
“It’s a very dangerous sport. And it’s unfortunate it takes a death for the provincial government to take a hard look at it.”
Calls for a single sanctioning body date back more than a decade. The need for improved oversight was a key finding of the public investigation into the 2017 death of Hague.
Hague, 34, died after suffering a knockout.
Following her investigation into Hague’s death, Justice Carrie Sharpe called on Alberta alone to regulate combative sporting events.
In her report, issued last month, she found there were gaps in the current patchwork of regulating bodies that were putting fighter safety at risk.
Alberta government officials have said Dousuah’s death will be investigated while also reviewing the fatality inquiry report into Hague’s death.
In a statement Thursday, a spokesperson with Alberta’s Ministry of Tourism and Sport offered condolences to the fighter’s family.
“We understand this is now under investigation by the RCMP. We will carefully review the results of the RCMP investigation and look at what further investigation may be required.”
Magraken can’t fathom why the province has ignored calls for a single regulating body for so long. He hopes Dousuah’s death can bring about change.
“How many more tragedies or how many more deaths do you need to take place before you start asking whether there’s something wrong in Alberta or Alberta can do a better job.”
