At just 38 years of age, Jordan Breen is dead. Merely typing this is difficult to process, but it is unfortunately where we are.
After I received news of Breen’s death, I almost didn’t have a reaction. I was saddened by the news, but something much larger about it made the entire thing a challenge to absorb and understand. Now with several days to think about the enormity as well as the tragedy of this news, I was able to cobble together some thoughts during this week’s live chat.
I’ll let the video here do the talking for me, but I’ll add an additional albeit sobering detail. To the best of my knowledge, the degree to which Breen was respected, admired and viewed as instrumental in the development of MMA fandom for an entire generation of fans is not something Breen himself was aware. While it is certainly nice and perhaps comforting to see the kind sentiments across the sport expressed for him and his work, it is equally dispiriting he didn’t get an opportunity to witness it.
The older I get, the more I arrive at a worldview underscored by the unforgiving reality life is short and tough often in the most unexpected ways. Most of us, in one capacity or another, need help. This is true whether one is rich or poor, male or female, young or old, smart or ordinary. I view making it to 45 years of age as partly a sheer act of survival. There is a paucity of both kindness and community in the modern world and I can’t help but wonder if Breen would still be around had there been more to go around.
As others have noted, there will never be another Jordan Breen. Those of us who knew him are truly the lucky ones.
