Trainer Duke Roufus Bashed Over Fighter's Death

Duke Roufus is primarily known for being the head coach at his gym, Roufus Sport, in Milwaukee where he trains current UFC lightweight champ Anthony “Showtime” Pettis. You may think that Roufus’ name could be popping up in the news regarding Pettis’s upcoming title defense, but that is not the case. The highly touted trainer is all of a sudden surrounded by negative controversy.

Last March, a kickboxer named Dennis Munson Jr. died after collapsing in the ring during his amateur debut. This past weekend (November 15, 2014), an article was released in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel regarding the incident. According to the article, there may have been numerous failures by ringside doctors, event staff, and coaches that influenced this tragic death.

The issues started for Munson on the same day during weigh-ins. The fighter’s brother, Derrick Munson claims that his brother was thirsty, but does not recall him drinking any water. This was likely a huge problem as cutting weight causes a fighter to become dehydrated and his body to weaken.

It has also been reported that Munson showed signs of distress during the fight as his body may have been failing him, and some admitted that the fight should have been stopped, although it wasn’t.

To make matters worse, once Munson collapsed, care was delayed over disagreement regarding treatment and ambulance care. For some reason, skilled paramedics were waved off and Munson was ultimately taken to a nearby hospital instead of Milwaukee’s Level one trauma center.

The article also discusses conflicts of interest in the promotion itself which is owned and run by Duke Roufus. The ringside doctor, Carlos Feliciano, is also a member of Roufus Sport and the incompetent referee on the night should be banned from officiating for life.

The following video shows the disturbing sequence of events

Clearly everyone involved in that fight was either untrained, or just an idiot. To allow such a fight to go on so long when Munson was clearly out of it is absolutely disgraceful.

After the incidence occurred, Munson was ruled dead by “blunt force injuries of the head”. There were then some comments made by his teammates that are quite alarming regarding the philosophy of Roufus’s fighters:

“Quitting is not an option for Roufusport fighters”, Munson’s teammates said.

“There is a lot of pressure to win,” said fighter Amanda Johnson. “They are very concerned about their reputation. We fight till we collapse, and that’s exactly what he did.”

From Cagepotato:

After this article was published, former Roufus trained fighter and The Ultimate Fighter 20 Contestant Rose Namajunas went as far as to attack to Roufus and his gym on social media posting multiple allegations from other fighters of terrible training stories that took place at the hands of Roufus himself as well as his striking coach Scott Cushman.

However, the shots at Roufus did not stop there. Former UFC light heavyweight and middleweight Eric Schafer, who also happened to be a trainer at Roufus Sport at one point, gave in his two cents as well bashing the trainer in the process:

“Duke Roufus is a bully, a liar, and one of the worst people I have ever met. I have never been in a more toxic environment than when I was the head grappling coach and fighter at the gym. I saw teammate after teammate getting treated like shit. Guys being told to beat up lower level guys that were just trying to help out, UFC fighters being told to beat up other UFC level fighters so they would not come back, verbal abuse, violence, guys getting lied to about fights, etc. I have messages and conversations with almost everyone of his fighters from my days there; from his UFC stars to his coaching staff about how much they were mistreated. I will not out them, but they know the truth. They can tell their tales if they want.

I was offered a fight on his card and told my manager that, “I personally would not ever fight for him.” so a when a few of my young fighters were scheduled to fight on his show (which I did not like, but he is the big local promoter), he decided to cancel their fights 2 weeks before the event. He wrote me a letter (which I kept) saying they were not welcome because I did not respect him. I said that I actually understand that, but I wish he wouldn’t have scheduled them in the first place and screwed them over. A year later the matchmaker came out and asked for forgiveness and said that we can at least have a business relationship. I said I didn’t trust Duke, but the other coaches wanted our guys on the card, I reluctantly agreed. Once again, he cancelled our fights a few weeks before to spite me.”

Ironically enough, Roufus Sport fighters happen to have the highest rate of injury among camps today. So what do you think, does Roufus Sport deserve a punishment or is this just the result of the inherent dangers of mixed martial arts?

Whatever the case, the god awful officiating and medical staff ringside essentially helped Munson on his way to a tragically early death.