Dennis Kirkham only saw footage of his youngest son's mixed martial arts bouts once. "The guy beat the heck out of the back of Michael's head to the point where it was beet red," Kirkham told FanHouse. "The other fighter was warned two or three times by the referee." Michael Kirkham lost that amateur fight in Columbia, S.C., on April 24 via a technical knockout, a bout he lamented on Facebook should have resulted in the disqualification of his opponent. Kirkham was given an automatic 30-day medical suspension for the TKO loss, but it doesn't appear that he followed up with a doctor. Two days after the suspension ended, Kirkham -- known to his friends here in the Carolinas as "Tree" due to his 6-foot-9, 155-pound frame -- suffered a brain hemorrhage in his pro debut at the University of South Carolina Aiken Convocation Center on June 26. He died two days later at the age of 30. "I told him he wasn't ready," Dennis Kirkham said. "He said, 'I'm fine, dad. I'm OK.'" Kirkham's was the second death in U.S. history linked directly to a sanctioned MMA bout. He was checked out immediately before the fight by a ringside doctor, and an ambulance was stationed nearby. It's possible, however, that neither could have been capable of detecting or treating the damage inflicted in the previous bout. Read more http://www.mmafighting.com/2010/07/15/death-in-the-cage-the-michael-kirkham-story/
