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The Stillwater Gazette (MN) has the story:

Relatives of a Stillwater Area High School graduate who died in Mexico under unclear circumstances say they are just looking for justice and details about his death by filing a lawsuit against those who saw him last.

Elizabeth Gunderson Koll filed the suit Thursday in Washington on behalf of her son, Josh Gunderson. The suit accuses Zachery Jensen, Jason Jones and Sterling Systems, which is owned by Jones, of negligence in Josh Gunderson's death.

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Gunderson died during a March trip to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, with Jensen and Ashley Jones. Jensen, who is now appearing on SpikeTV's 'The Ultimate Fighter," was working for the Jones family as a bodyguard.

KTSP-TV has more:

An autopsy ordered by the family shows Gunderson had wounds to his face, and that he ultimately choked on his own vomit. The medical examiner says that could have happened because of a struggle.

The concierge at the Sheraton Hotel told authorities Jensen said "I just defended myself. He was attacking me." They claim he also said "he shouldn't be with her. He was liking her and she didn't."

"We want deposition testimony from individuals in the room when Josh died," said attorney John Magnuson.

The concierge said he ordered Ashley Jones to stay, but she left the hotel before authorities arrived and headed home. Her family had no comment Thursday night.

Zach Jensen had no comment either. But his parents did share their thoughts.

"Alcohol was the responsible party here, way too much alcohol. That should be the focus," said Karen Jensen.

HT MMA.Fanhouse

The reason I get pissed off at Rampage is because he's supposed to be a coach, and I used to be a coach as well. When Demico lost the way he did, Rampage started feeling sorry for himself. You could hear him saying things like, "Do I have bad luck?", and, "I can't believe he tapped out to that bullshit". I remember he said something like, "I would never lose like that". Really Rampage? Really? You're going to act like that big of a douche because one of your guys lost, even though he fought good? Demico went in there and surprised a lot of people, and lost, but who cares. Everybody loses. What did you do after your last loss Rampage? You went on a f***ing cocaine rage and stayed up all damn night before you were driving your monster truck with a big logo on it through white f***ing suburbia. Running from the cops where they had to shoot out your f***ing tires. Then Dana had to come down and bail your ass out and send you to England so the media wouldn't eat your ass apart, so you would still have a f***ing career.

The Ultimate Fighter season 10 cast member Mike Wessel talks about TUF coach Quinton "Rampage" Jackson to Heavy.com.

Special bonus quote, he talks about Kimbo Slice's training regime:

I guarantee you that his manager Icy Mike doesn't have a f***ing clue about what Roy's all about, but if he had a clue about MMA, he would have gotten Kimbo some f***ing training. I was sitting on the back porch with Kimbo and he was talking to me and a few of the other guys, and Kimbo was like, "Man, I have to learn what you guys do. I have to do what you guys are doing", and this was after he lost to Roy. So I asked him the question, 'How many times have you practiced Jiu-Jitsu? How do you train?', and he says, "I did one practice about three months ago". I said, 'You don't f***ing do it every day? I do it sometimes twice a day'. He goes, "No man". So that just goes to show that all of the people around him are all about the money and not about the f***ing sport. If they wanted Kimbo to have any kind of longevity, after they got that $500,000 for the Seth Petruzelli fight, they would have gotten him some Jiu-Jitsu. Now supposedly he's training out of ATT in Florida, and I don't even know if they're training him down there, because if Kimbo doesn't want to learn Jiu-Jitsu, Kimbo's not going to learn Jiu-Jitsu.

Photo via Houston Chronicle

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Rampage takes to his personal blog and gives his side of the story now that he's being revealed to be a very inadequate MMA coach (registration required):

So after that fight I was furious. But I still had one more fighter in the locker room who I had to prepare for his fight. Wes Shivers had a tougher fight lined up, in my opinion, and it was a more important fight for me because I knew Wes could beat James. Also James was one of Rashad's team mates that didn't have to try out for the show, that's why I wanted to take him out so badly. In Wes Shivers evaluation the coaches told me that he had the best cardio out of everybody. He had great stand up and great BJJ so I was disappointed when he got winded in the fight and let the game plan go out the window. But in Wes' defense I think he won that fight, or at least should have gone to a 3rd round, but I was trying to keep my composure because I was already so pissed off at Abe. I didn't want to lose my temper and go crazy. That's when I knew T.U.F was going to be the same bullshit as Season 7. Rashad acts so fake and cocky and he wants to act like he cares more about my fighter than I do and brag about how he's a better coach than I am. But I tried to explain to him that I'm not a coach and I won't be coaching after my fighting career, like he might. So as the fights go on and I end up losing a couple fights in a row, I grew more pissed and I let it get to me. So, the whole time Rashad was being a dick and cocky, I just talked to them back in the locker room, in private. Rashad thought the show was about him, about how good of a coach he could be and how fake he could be. But I knew what it was all about.

The show is called the Ultimate Fighter, not the Ultimate Coach. Rashad is so full of himself, even though he just got knocked the hell out by Machida. It was the worst showing of his fight career. Now that he is a one and done champion he thinks that the show is about him. It was hard for me to do this show because I know how fake Rashad is and what kind of person he is. Most of the real fans can tell too, that's why he gets booed all the time. I liked everyone on my team and I chose my team for a number of reasons. If I could do it over I would choose all the same guys, except next time I WILL choose the camera man.

Look, the editing of the show is designed to maximize drama and even support false narratives for ratings' sake, so making any rigid determinations is probably something we should shy away from. However, we should also not allow Rampage to tell us to not believe our lying eyes. Not only has he littered this season with some the least helpful corner advice I've heard in professional MMA, in both the instances of Wes and Abe Rampage pawns off the responsibility for evaluating them to his coaches Zach Light and Tiki Ghosn rather than take ownership for his failings in how he personally assessed them in training. And rather than accepting responsibility for the loss of his team members, Rampage instead retreats to the "I'm not a coach" canard, thereby saying he can't be evaluated as a coach since he's intellectually removed himself from the running. While Rampage can internally withdraw from the position, the reality is that he is a coach and a particularly bad one in a wide variety of aspects.

And we aren't the only ones noticing from the outside. Team Rashad's Brendan Schaub offers some inside baseball on Team Rampage's training:

I'm glad they showed some of Rampage Jackson's team training and just how ridiculous some of it is. Rampage's team actually had a theme that they refuse to tap no matter what, which is just a lack of respect in training. They showed Zak getting put to sleep in practice , which should not happen, and that wasn't the first time that someone on their team got choked out in practice. On one hand Rampage wants to drill the basics, and on the other, those basics do not include tapping when in trouble.

It shouldn't be a mystery as to why Rampage is not an adept leader of MMA fighters. He abhors training himself and has relied on the diligence and meticulousness of the trainers he's paid over the years to provide an external apparatus of training and guidance for him. There's nothing wrong with that, of course, and Rampage has used this personal formula to a highly successful degree. Who can argue with his success? But asking someone who hasn't really practiced mentoring or developed the organizational skills and leadership qualities of a coach to then take on those responsibilities isn't going to yield optimal results.

It sounds as if Rampage is frustrated with how he's being portrayed by SpikeTV producers and I'm certain he has a legitimate gripe somewhere in the editing, but his shortcomings as a coach aren't all or even mostly television sleight of hand.

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Let's start off with the obvious, the coaches rallying around Kimbo after he lost. This is the first time any of Team Rampage's coaches and even Quinton "Rampage" Jackson showed any concern for someone who lost. Rampage has Kimbo Slice's [expletive] in his mouth and so does Tiki Ghosn. When Rampage told Tiki they would still focus on Kimbo just in case someone got hurt, it was clear to me that it was all about Kimbo and no one else on our team.

The Ultimate Fighter 10 contestant Zak Jensen blogging about his experiences as a member of Team Rampage.

UPDATE: Zak emailed me the following revised text that he says should have been published instead of the above:

Lets start off with the obvious, the coaches rallying around Kimbo after he lost. This is the first time any of Team Rampage's coaches and even Rampage showed any concern for some one who lost. This just proved, using Rampages own words he used against James saying" he had Rashad's nuts in his mouth." Rampage has Kimbo's nuts in his mouth and so does Tiki. This all being proved when Tiki said, "Roy wasn't happy with the win," and when Rampage told him they would still focus on him just in case some one got hurt. It became apparently clear to me it was truly all about Kimbo and not anyone else on our team.

MMAWeekly: Firstly, Roy claimed that you didn't stop the fight in the first round because of Kimbo's status on the show. How do you respond to that?

Dean: Well, it's not that complicated. I'm there to protect the fighter's safety. Kimbo got up after that round pretty quick and spry, right? If I stop a fight it's because I believe a fighter's not fighting back, because he can't. And there's reasons why a fighter can't fight back. One is a positional reason like Roy had on Kimbo. It was positional. Could (Kimbo) handle blows and continue to fight? He did. He made it to the end of the (first) round and continued to fight. If the blows were any less, I would have actually stood them up. The blows were strong enough to warrant being on the ground, but they weren't strong enough for me to stop the fight.

...

MMAWeekly: So you felt the blows that Kimbo was taking in the second round were, whereas the ones in the first round weren't?

Dean: Well, I believe that the blows were solid blows. In the first round, they were solid blows, just like in the second round, but in the second round, it was the beginning of the round that he was down there. I can't allow him - he was not going to improve his position, he was not going to solve it - I couldn't allow him five minutes of that in the second round. Could I allow him to take it for 30 seconds in the first? Sure.

Referee Herb Dean talking to MMA Weekly.

I can't remember if I went on the record bitching about Dean's reffing of the match or not, but I must admit, he makes a compelling case for himself.

The American fight fan does not appreciate an intelligent gameplan.

Just ask Anderson Silva.  Silva took few risks en route to a unanimous decision win over Thales Leites at UFC 97, drawing near-universal ire from fans who paid to see a helpless Christian sacrificed to the middleweight lion.  The message came through loud and clear: kill, maim, and pillage.  Or die trying.

Following his patient deconstruction of Kimbo Slice, fans have dismissed Roy Nelson's performance as too cautious, unimpressive.  The general tone implying some level of cowardice from "Big Country".

But let's face it.  The ultimate goal for a fighter, and I don't think this can be argued, is to inflict damage on his opponent while avoiding his adversary's attempts to do the same. 

This point gets magnified on the Ultimate Fighter.  To reach the finals, a contestant will have to fight a minimum of three times within a period of two months.  Winning becomes a misnomer; a fighter must SURVIVE to move on to the next round.

I won't argue that Nelson's performance deserves to go down in the mythical oral histories of fight sport.  The fight was no more aesthetically pleasing than Roy's full-body profile.  But we should at least appreciate the efficiency with which our rotund warrior carried out his gameplan.  He lulled Slice into a false sense of striking security and took him down when the opportunity presented itself.  From there, Nelson trapped Slice in a crucifix with the cold-blooded and systematic precision of a hungry desert snake.

Nelson exited the cage looking much like he did when he entered it.  He won't have to worry about scar tissuing opening up, nor will he be favoring a fresh ligament sprain.  He took complete advantage of the skill mismatch presented to him in the fight.

If you're still not convinced, picture the following scenario.  Roy and Kimbo meet in the center of the Octagon.  Following the obligatory feeling out period, punches are thrown.  Punches are landed.  Roy's given up all pretense that he'll bring the fight to the floor.  It's a slugfest that gives Don Frye and Yoshihiro Takayama pause.  Nelson rocks Kimbo, sending him stumbling into the fence.  Roy rushes in, smelling the fresh blood of Miami meat...

...and then he wakes up with doctor's shining lights in his eyes.  Roy asks what happened.  "You just got your ass knocked out, son."

Imagine the adjectives we'd use to describe Roy on Thursday morning.  Stupid.  Reckless.  Bone-headed.  (And let's not forget the most obvious: fat.) 

The fight certainly fell far short of the promotional muscle Zuffa put behind it, of that there is no question.  But Roy played the game exactly like he should.  And for that, I can find no fault.

Mike Chiappetta interviews Kimbo Slice and Steve Cofield points out the following:

Kimbo says he will beat Nelson if he gets another fight with him. The former International Fight League champ was the only guy left on Rashad Evans' team that would've beat him:

"When he picked me to fight Roy, I felt like, okay, anyone of his other guys, he knows I probably would've beaten them hands down. They probably wouldn't be able to hang with me. Hands down Kimbo would probably mop everybody else."

Not quite the humble Kimbo that everyone has come to love so much in the past couple of weeks.

MMA Payout contrasts the UFC's promotion of Kimbo Slice with that of EliteXC:

UFC put together terrific television last night, as the organization turned what many were predicting to be a disaster (i.e., Kimbo’s presumed loss to Nelson) into, well, perhaps not quite gold, but something that’s likely to keep a strong level of viewer interest through the remainder of the season, even if Kimbo does not (as was hinted in the preview of next week’s episode) immediately receive a second chance in the tournament.

UFC took the exact opposite tack as that taken by EliteXC, which promoted Kimbo as an almost unbeatable freak (recall announcer Gus Johnson’s excitement at having seen the greatest "upset" in MMA history when Seth Petruzelli KO’d Kimbo). 

Last night’s Kimbo was likable and intelligent, and even turned introspective towards the camera discussing his need to defeat his "enemy," his "enemy," his "inner me."  Truly great stuff.

There's a truism in the world of professional wrestling: for a character to become a huge draw, the performer must be able to tap into some aspect of his own personality.  Steve Austin went nowhere as "Stunning" Steve or the Ringmaster.  Fans booed Dwayne Johnson mercilessly when he played the happy-go-lucky babyface Rocky Maivia.  Shawn Michaels (real name: Michael Hickenbottom) toiled on the mid-card in an 80's hair metal tag team gimmick.

Those guys' popularity exploded when they became "Stone Cold", "the Rock", and "the Heartbreak Kid".

The difference with Kimbo should be obvious - he already draws in eyeballs.  But that draw came with a tremendous amount of backlash.  Many MMA fans (your's truly not among them) felt Kimbo received too much, too soon.  They felt it unfair for him to headline network MMA shows while a title fight between Robbie Lawler and Scott Smith filled the "lowly" co-main slot.

The argument about whether this Kimbo-hate was really misdirected animosity for EliteXC and that promotion's business dealings is a discussion for another article.  The fact of the matter is that a significant portion of the MMA fanbase rejected Kimbo as a legitimate mixed martial artist.

Enter the UFC and the Ultimate Fighter.  It's clear from last night's show that Kimbo still has holes in his MMA game as glaringly obvious as a Joan Rivers facelift.  But the pulse from the MMA community seems to converge on a new view: we want to see Kimbo succeed.

Even during his infamous EliteXC run, Kimbo never portrayed himself as anything but humble.  He understood MMA was a far cry from knocking out tough guys in back yards and loading docks.  Now, without the pretense of being a world-beater bestowed about him, it seems as if the man's true colors can shine through.

We saw numerous examples of this just last night.  From his pseudo-philosophical enemy/inner me ramblings to his "yes, sir"/"no, sir" demeanor in practice, Kimbo has begun to erode the reputation he picked up in 2007 and 2008.

While the latest incarnation of the UFC's reality show looked to improve on the level of talent of previous seasons, it wasn't until the UFC confirmed Kimbo's participation that the show became must watch television.  It's no stretch to say the ratings will see a huge drop off from last night's mega-event, but Zuffa deftly latched on to a new hook: Kimbo as the underdog, begging and clawing his way back into the tournament.  And if there's anything America loves more than tearing down its celebrities, it's watching them return to glory.

Go get that bread, Kimbo Slice.

Reports are that last night's episode of The Ultimate Fighter: The Heavyweights featuring Kimbo Slice vs Roy Nelson broke all records for MMA on Spike TV with an average of 5.3 million viewers for the whole episode and 6.1 million views for the fight itself.

This puts Kimbo Slice vs Roy Nelson as the fourth most viewed MMA fight in U.S. history. Kimbo has now fought in three out of the four most viewed fights in American MMA history.

TV By The Numbers is reporting that TUF was competitive with the big three networks in viewership in that time slot -- "CSI: NY" on CBS drew 12.87 million viewers, "Eastwick" on ABC drew 6.62 million, and "The Jay Leno Show" drew 5.99 million.

I was saying last night that Kimbo vs Nelson was a metaphor for the first ten years of MMA in the American consciousness -- the impressive looking guy gets taken down and beaten in an unsatisfactory fashion by someone who doesn't look tough at all.

I'll be very interested to see if Kimbo actually brings new fans to the sport of if he's the American Bobby Ologun. As someone who watched Japan's MMA boom and bust this has an ominous and familiar feeling. Freakshow matches don't build a sport.

Update from Michael Rome:  The show did a 3.7 Household rating according to MMA Payout.  That is the highest household rating a mixed martial arts show has ever done, though admittedly it's not fair to compare a one hour show to two or three hour broadcasts.