00:06Another fighter of note on Season 17 was Josh Saman.
00:11I'm just trying to take it as far as I can, push the limits, and hopefully when I look
00:17back on this experience, I'll be able to say that I did all I can to win.
00:21Saman made an impression early on when he used a bizarre double-fisted clubbing technique
00:27which drew derision from Jones, but seemed to impress Chael.
00:31Not a move that I would recommend, but for some reason it works when he does it.
00:35I think Josh is for real.
00:37Saman was one of the standouts of the season. He was cocky, arrogant, and I mean Jesus Christ,
00:43look at this man. He looked like a fucking Greek god made flesh. He made an enemy of Uriah Hall
00:49after Hall described fellow housemate Tor Traynig as a professional cooker, to which Saman
00:56corrected him by saying it's called a chef. The editors used all this to paint him as the villain
01:03of the season, but outside of the illusory wall of reality TV, Saman was anything but villainous.
01:11Friends said that Saman correcting people's grammar as he had with Hall was simply a form of insecurity.
01:17He himself had never finished high school. Josh had a troubled childhood. Introduced to drugs at an
01:25early age, he had survived an overdose by age 11. He dropped out of school aged 16, and by 17
01:32he was
01:33using cocaine. One word to describe my life from 16 years old to 27, um, roller coaster. I grew up
01:45with a single mother. I largely raised myself for my later teenage years and I moved out of my mom's
01:51house at an early age and kind of made for an unconventional lifestyle growing up compared to
01:57a lot of my friends. Even his own mother described him as, and I quote, a little asshole. I dropped
02:04out
02:04of high school when I was 16, moved out, and I found mixed martial arts. Before hitting his 20s,
02:11he'd been through both jail and rehab, but his asshole tendencies changed drastically for the better
02:17year. When Josh found MMA. With a record of nine wins and two losses in his early career, Saman co
02:25-founded
02:25his own MMA promotion called Combat Night, based in Tallahassee, Florida. But his goal was always the UFC.
02:34He had tried out for tough four times, failing twice, succumbing to injury a third, and finally in his
02:41fourth attempt, he double-fisted his way onto the show. Much like Hall, despite coming up short in the
02:47competition, he was still given a contract by the UFC once the show was over. His first official fight
02:54in the UFC was at the tough finale on April 13, 2013, where he defeated Kevin Casey via TKO. From
03:03overdosing
03:04aged 11 to a successful UFC debut aged 25, Saman's story was very much in its redemption arc. But all
03:13that was to change four months later. Saman's girlfriend, Haley Kate, was killed after her car
03:21hydroplaned off a wet highway and into a tree. She and Josh had been texting at the time of the
03:27accident,
03:28and Josh, knowing she had been driving while they were texting, was unable to blame anyone but
03:34himself for the accident. I always had speculated that it was her and I texting that was the cause
03:39of the accident. Whether that was the case or not, the time between the first responder on the accident
03:48and the last text that she sent me was remarkably close. So I don't know that I'm not sure that
03:56it
03:56could lead to any other conclusion than that. When you're at your weakest, addiction is at its
04:03strongest. And 2013 did its best to assail any of Josh's remaining defenses. A string of deaths hit
04:12Saman's family. Shortly after that, my mom's husband, Jeff, died. And then Haley's mom, Sue, died. And it was
04:19just one thing after another where I really didn't know if it was ever going to end. Saman slipped back
04:33off. Josh needed goals to keep him sober. And fate seemed to intervene on his behalf when UFC 181 was
04:40announced for the 6th of December 2014, a date that held particular significance for Saman. It would
04:48have been Haley's 24th birthday. And so that's what originally brought me out of the darkness,
04:53was knowing that I had light at the end of the tunnel, knowing that there was that octagon waiting for
04:59me
04:59with an opponent on the other side of me that was going to be my canvas for all the things
05:04that I
05:04had been through. Josh was scheduled to fight another tough graduate, season 19's middleweight
05:10winner, Eddie Gordon. That night, in a moment of pure catharsis, Saman defeated Gordon via headkick KO,
05:20securing a performance of the night and contender for knockout of the year. Post-fight, Saman collapsed to
05:27the mat, an outpouring of grief for the touch of a vanished hand and the sound of a voice that
05:34is
05:34still. I was on a mission, I had a goal, I wasn't leaving without completing that goal. There was no
05:41doubt in my mind that I was leaving a winner. That was my finest hour of my whole life,
05:58of all 26 years at the time. It was an element of closure that that I couldn't have had in
06:05any other
06:05way. I'm still not completely behind the mantra that everything happens for a reason but I've
06:14learned to just trust the journey because at the end of the day we don't really have any choice but
06:19to.
06:20I knew as long as I didn't give up and just stayed in the fight that there'd be a way
06:24to succeed and I
06:25had so many moments of self-doubt and uncertainty since the last time I was in the cage. This is
06:30for
06:30Haley and Sue and Jeff and my mom and everybody in Tallahassee, 850, I love you guys, you're my heart,
06:34thank you for so much.
06:55After the Gordon fight, things were going well in Josh's life. In July of 2015, he fought Kyle
07:03Magalace and secured another performance of the night victory. Now I'm just gonna hang tight,
07:08drink a beer, enjoy the rest of the fights and see what the future holds for me. I'm just along
07:11for
07:11the ride guys, I love this. In September, Combat Night celebrated its 50th event in front of a crowd
07:18of 4,000 fans and in 2016, Saman poured all of that grief into an autobiography and not a ghostwritten
07:26slog like Matt Hughes' autobiography. Saman was a gifted writer, he was a columnist for Bloody
07:32Elbow and UFC.com and wrote every page of his own story, The Housekeeper, Love, Death and Prize
07:40Fighting. And last, I think I'd like to write a book before I die. She was always telling me to
07:44write
07:44more, to tell stories. Well, do you think I'll be in your book, she asked, with genuine curiosity and
07:49naivety? Darling, if I had to guess, I'd say you'll be the whole damn thing. And she is. And she
07:54is.
07:56Once the book was released, things took a turn. Without that focus in his life, Saman became
08:03unmoored. He started partying again and lost his next fight. His final fight in the UFC was on the
08:1113th of July 2016. Saman ignored all of his corner's advice and lost via brutal ground and pound at the
08:19hands of Tim Boach. What none of us could have known watching this was that Saman had been partying
08:26and using cocaine shortly before the fight. Almost none of us commit suicide. And almost all of us
08:34self-destruct. In some way, in some part of our lives, we drink or we smoke, we destabilize the good
08:42job, the happy marriage. But these aren't decisions, they're impulses. Josh self-destructed. Unable to
08:53forgive himself for the loss of his girlfriend, he succumbed to those impulses. The last few months,
08:59I didn't feel he right. I didn't feel he right. He was not the same guy. He was always sad.
09:06I remember
09:06one of the last times we train, he was like, like he was not there. We're stretching. And Josh was
09:13not
09:13there. He was sad. I said, Josh, what's going on? Two months after his last fight, Josh and the ring
09:19announcer for combat night, Tony Kirkenberg, were found unresponsive in an apartment in South Florida.
09:26Kirkenberg had been dead for some time when they were found, the victim of a cocaine and heroin overdose.
09:33Saman was still breathing. He was taken to hospital where he remained in a coma for six days.
09:41But he's supposed to be here and he's not here right now. You still can't believe it, man.
09:47Josh never woke up. I'm not comfortable with the title of role model, but I do know that there are
09:54some things that people can learn from me. The more of my story that I get out, the more I
09:59think that
09:59I can help people.
10:00Move the money.
10:19Talk to me.
10:22You
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