{"id":1270159,"date":"2022-12-25T23:00:10","date_gmt":"2022-12-25T23:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/12\/25\/stephan-bonnar-of-ufc-fame-dies-at-45\/"},"modified":"2022-12-25T23:00:10","modified_gmt":"2022-12-25T23:00:10","slug":"stephan-bonnar-of-ufc-fame-dies-at-45","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/12\/25\/stephan-bonnar-of-ufc-fame-dies-at-45\/","title":{"rendered":"Stephan Bonnar of UFC fame dies at 45"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Dec. 25 (UPI) \u2014<\/span> Stephen Bonnar, who helped popularize UFC in the first season of \u201cThe Ultimate Fighter\u201d in 2005, died Thursday. He was 45.<\/p>\n

Bonnar died from \u201cpresumed heart complications\u201d while at work, UFC said in a news release.\n<\/p>\n

The Hall of Famer\u2019s three-round bout against Forrest Griffin at the end of the show\u2019s first season was described by UFC as one of the greatest fights of all time.<\/p>\n

\u201cStephan Bonnar was one of the most important fighters to ever compete in the Octagon,\u201d UFC President Dana White said in the statement.<\/p>\n

\u201cHis fight with Forrest Griffin changed the sport forever, and he will never be forgotten. The fans loved him, related to him and he always gave them his best. He will be missed.\u201d<\/p>\n

UFC said that the Bonnar-Griffin fight \u201cmay have saved\u201d the mixed martial arts promotion company in the mid-2000s because it led to another season of \u201cThe Ultimate Fighter\u201d and introduced new fans to the sport.<\/p>\n

\u201cI knew it was a good fight during the fight,\u201d Bonnar later said of the fight.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt hit me when everyone started stomping their feet and it felt like the whole place was shaking. And that was in the second round. I was like \u2018oooh, this must be good.’\u201d\n<\/p>\n

Bonnar ended his career with a 17-9 record and defeated fellow Hall of Famers including Rashad Evans, Mark Coleman, Anderson Silva and Tito Ortiz.<\/p>\n

Source<\/a> <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dec. 25 (UPI) \u2014 Stephen Bonnar, who helped popularize UFC in the first season of \u201cThe Ultimate Fighter\u201d in 2005, died Thursday. He was 45. Bonnar died from \u201cpresumed heart complications\u201d while at work, UFC said in a news release. The Hall of Famer\u2019s three-round bout against Forrest Griffin at the end of the show\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1270160,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1270159","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1270159","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1270159"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1270159\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1270159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1270159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1270159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}