UFC Hall of Famer Stephan Bonnar has died at the age of 45.

Bonnar was a finalist on the first ever season of The Ultimate Fighter and was credited by UFC boss Dana White as saving the promotion when he and Forest Griffin stood toe-to-toe and unleashed at the end of a hellacious fight during the season finale.

No official cause of death has been released.

Bonnar and Griffin were inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2013 with White saying during the ceremony: “There has never been a more important fight in the history of the UFC.”

45 is so young man.

By far, The American Psycho had one of the best entrance walk ins ever with The Who's "Eminence Front". Not far behind the likes of Crop Cop or Fedor. Yeah that fight with Griffin was epic, that was in the mid 00's where UFC was catching fire and beginning to really grow.

This sucks to hear. I remember during his fight with Forrest Griffin on the finale of the first Ultimate Fighter, many on the old PW Boards were upset that UFC was preempting WWE Velocity. And all I could think was "no matter what WWE was going to air tonight, it couldn't be better than the fight Griffin and Bonner just had". Though he lost the fight, he definitely was deserving of a contract from the company as well, since (as Fans White said), it basically saved the UFC.

RIP Bonner.

His heart gave out while he was at work. Brutal.

He earned that contract by standing with Forest for three rounds.  May not have been the best guy, but few in the history of the show went as hard as he did.

Sadly it doesn't come as a huge surprise.

If you haven't seen it I'd thoroughly recommend Napoleon Blownapart's The Rise and Fall of the Ultimate Fighter where he chronicles what life after the show was like for the participants. Sadly for Bonnar he was a trainwreck and despite his body being absolutely busted he had to resort to indie Pro Wrestling just to support himself.



Blownapart covers it better than I ever could and I'd thoroughly recommend his channel even to non-MMA fans.

I've never been a big UFC fan, however, during those three years or so that I did watch the sport, it was his fight with Forest Griffin where they both won contracts that got me into it.

My thoughts and prayers go out to his friends and family, especially this day of all days.

Every single team from the AFC South now under .500 they should start drafting from the SEC more.

Quick story. My older brother wrestled Bonner at a AAU tournament and beat him soundly. My brother was heavier than me, but never wrestled at the college level like myself or wasn’t was good as me. So I would have beat Bonner really bad and could have headlined UFC events I suppose.

That infamous UFC fight is how I got into the sport so RIP Legend.

Yeah, but you didn't.

I remember that Griffin fight well. UFC hit our shores around the Tito Ortiz era, and simmered down a lot by 2005. Fuel TV showed TUF here in Australia and surprisingly a lot of people followed it here. That fight with Griffin was the game changer and you kind of knew it at the time. Most of what I remember of UFC prior were two guys rolling around on the mat tugging each other's balls. This was a war.