Jordan Parsons

Jordan Parsons was born on August 26th, 1990 in Fargo, North Dakota. His family then moved to the poverty-stricken town of Covert, Michigan when he was 8 years old. Living in Covert, Parsons was exposed to violence at a very young age with one of his classmates being a victim of sexual assault. It was then that Parsons realized he needed to learn to defend himself. Parsons was an over-weight child with a father that had a rare skin condition- both elements that made him a target for being bullied on a regular basis.

Jordan's parents separated when Jordan was just 13 years old, and his mother moved him to Berrien Springs, Michigan. It was here that Parsons began to take an interest in working out and wrestling, qualifying for the state tournament twice for Berrien Springs High. At the age of 15, Parsons broke out of his shell when a group of older kids cornered him and a friend at the beach. Parsons was forced to defend himself against the odds and quickly learned that he was able to do so very well, coming out of the altercation unscathed.

Jordan's first fight in a ring was when he was only 17 years old, after training at a local MMA gym for just a month. After winning the fight quickly, he developed a passion for the sport. Parsons had found his calling, resulting in progressively moving up the ranks. It began with traveling across the country to eventually win the belt in the CFA. Later in his career, Parsons trained with some of the best fighters and coaches in the world. This led Jordan to signing with Bellator. He trained at Jaco Hybrid with The Blackzilians, one of the world's most elite group of MMA athletes [13]

Parsons was hit by a Range Rover in Delray Beach, Florida early in the morning of May 1, 2016, while crossing a street. As a result, he had the bottom half of his right leg amputated.[14] He died on May 4, 2016 as a result of his injuries.[15] On May 7, 28-year-old Dennis Wright of Boca Raton was charged with leaving the scene of a crash causing death, tampering with evidence and driving with a suspended license as a habitual offender, his sixth suspension. Wright tried to take the damaged SUV to a body shop, but the body shop owner refused to repair the SUV. According to the unnamed witnesses cited in the report, the body shop owner knew the SUV had been involved in the crash that killed Jordan Parsons. That led to Wright storing the SUV at Security Storage Facility at 189 W. Linton Blvd, police said. [16]

In October 2016, it was announced that a postmortem analysis of Parsons' brain had revealed the degenerative brain disease Chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE).[17] Parsons was the second fighter in the multibillion-dollar MMA industry to be publicly identified as having been diagnosed with CTE, with Gary Goodridge being the first.