Raw Combat by Jim Genia

Author:Jim Genia
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kensington
Published: 2011-09-29T04:00:00+00:00

III

I don’t pretend to know the demons that can drive a man from the brink of success to the depths of defeat, suffice to say that Kaream had them, and for whatever reason, they managed to keep him down. After that June MFC, billionaire Calvin Ayre flushed the organization with cash and turned it into BodogFIGHT, a promotion heralded as the one true competitor to the UFC but in reality just a way for the matchmaker to spend ridiculous amounts of Ayre’s money. Kaream was among the twenty fighters flown down to a private compound in Costa Rica, paired up against each other for bouts that would comprise a television program intended to be the next best thing to the Ultimate Fighter show, and in a ring erected within a jungle setting, Kaream fought unprepared. He was submitted in the second round, in a match that would air months later on a Christian-based cable network barely seen by anyone who would care. I learned this when Kaream called to tell me that Jacqueline, now his wife, had given birth to his son, and though from speaking with Sambo Steve I knew that Kaream hadn’t been training (“I don’t know, man. He’s disappeared.”), I still harbored hope that things would work out for the warrior from the South Bronx. I congratulated him on his son and wished him, truly wished him, all the best. One last bout on his contract and Kaream was sent to Tokyo, Japan, the sole American on an event that for him ended with a submission defeat in just over two minutes. Kaream didn’t compete in MMA again.

On November 7th, 2007, his wife was found murdered outside a six-floor apartment building. According to police reports her throat was slit and she was stabbed multiple times before being thrown off the roof of a well-known drug location. She had been living in a women’s shelter in Manhattan with Kaream’s toddler, struggling. Jacqueline was twenty-one years old.

Kaream called me, his voice grim and sapped of life. It had been over a year since we last spoke, and his absence had left all within the scene to assume that whatever called him back to the streets had called him back for good, assumptions painful and saddening for those who had hoped this troubled soul would be different. I expressed my condolences, more heartfelt than my hugs and best wishes ever were, and Kaream asked if I knew of any leads. Mixed martial arts was his greatest source of success; he needed money now to raise his son, as the lone parent more so than before. I promised to put his name back out there, and he followed up with an e-mail, an impassioned plea to every promoter, reporter, and news outlet that would listen. The e-mail read:

“Hi. This is Kaream Ellington. My wife, Jacqueline Irizarry, was murdered November 7th and I now must raise my son alone. I now must provide for my son and mixed martial arts is what has provided the most helpful income.

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