Alberta RCMP deem death of amateur fighter not suspicious

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EDMONTON — The criminal investigation into the death of an amateur fighter following a mixed martial arts charity event near Edmonton last year has ended.

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Alberta RCMP said Monday they have deemed the death of Trokon Dousuah not suspicious.

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Dousuah died at the age of 33 on Nov. 25 of injuries sustained two days earlier in a charity fight organized by Ultra MMA at a community centre on Enoch Cree Nation, west of Edmonton. A video of his fight showed him being helped from the ring in distress.

Days after Dousuah’s death, the Alberta government launched a review to improve athlete safety in combat sports.

Sport Minister Andrew Boitchenko said last week the review was ongoing.

“We are reviewing the options right now across the province and country to see how other jurisdictions are handling this,” he said.

“It is on our radar and we are currently talking to other organizations to see what’s the best way to deal with this.”

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Before Dousuah’s death, an inquiry report into the 2017 death of Edmonton boxer Tim Hague recommended the province regulate combative sporting events instead of allowing them to operate through a patchwork of commissions.

Alberta is the only province in Canada that doesn’t have a provincial regulatory body for combative sports.

Ultra MMA, which organized the Enoch event, is linked to U.K.-based Ultra Events Ltd., a company previously cited for safety concerns in the death of a novice boxer named Dominic Chapman at a 2022 charity match in the United Kingdom.

A June 2024 report into Chapman’s death by a senior coroner in Worcestershire, U.K., urged Ultra Events Ltd. to improve its safety standards.

“Chapman sustained a fatal head injury in the course of a charity boxing match organized by Ultra Events Ltd.,” coroner David Reid says in the report, which was released almost six months before Dousuah died.

“In my opinion, there is a concern that future deaths will occur unless action is taken.”

In response to the report, Ultra Events Ltd. promised stricter record keeping of weight discrepancies between fighters, stricter rules on risk assessments and event-specific medical plans.

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