Skilled blended martial arts fighter Elias Theodorou, greatest identified for his advocacy on behalf of athletes who use hashish, has died of most cancers, his household introduced Monday. He was 34.
“Elias ‘The Spartan’ Theodorou answered his closing bell yesterday, September eleventh, 2022,” his household stated in a press release to NBC Information.
“He handed peacefully at dwelling together with his household and family members in his nook after a hard-fought battle with colon most cancers that metastasized.”
MMA promoter UFC on Monday stated the “affable Toronto native” led a profession and a life to be happy with.
“Elias Theodorou made an impression in his 34 years, one which received’t be forgotten,” UFC stated.
Theodorou left UFC in 2019 after amassing a 16-3 file total, and an 8-3 file within the sport’s prime league. One among his final bout’s was in December, when he beat Bryan Baker at an occasion referred to as Colorado Fight Membership 10.
In addition to his profession in combating, Theodorou is maybe equally identified for his medical hashish advocacy, famous for incomes Canada’s first hashish exemption for skilled athletes in 2020.
The following yr, Colorado granted an analogous exemption. Theodorou stated it was a primary for a professional athlete in the USA.
Sports activities lawyer Erik Magraken, who memorialized the middleweight fighter on his web site, stated these hashish victories led on to related stances by the UFC and the USA Anti-Doping Company.
“A outstanding legacy Elias created,” the lawyer wrote Monday.
Theodorou was lively within the Toronto marijuana neighborhood and served because the “chief entry officer” for hashish platform Leafythings, which helps Canadians discover supply providers and dispensaries.
He additionally fought for different fighters. In response to Magraken, he lobbied the Affiliation of Boxing Commissions to acknowledge a committee of fighters and retired athletes and provides them voice in issues of battle regulation.
After graduating from Toronto’s Humber School with a level in artistic promoting, Theodorou took up appearing, stunt work and modeling. He additionally appeared on the quilt of a number of romance novels revealed by Toronto-based Harlequin Books, UFC stated.
As an MMA fighter, Theodorou received his first eight bouts.
As a contestant on 2014’s “The Final Fighter Nations: Canada vs. Australia,” he reached the fact present’s winner-deciding battle, a bout towards fellow Canadian Sheldon Wescott.
Theodorou beat him in 4 minutes, 41 seconds throughout a “UFC Battle Evening” occasion in Québec.
His first loss got here to Thiago Santos in December 2015.
“I realized from it, and I’m actually happy with the battle,” he instructed UFC. “It’s going to by no means change my need to have that fighter’s journey, that touring id.”
Theodorou’s household on Monday remembered him as “eternally, irrationally, and infectiously optimistic.”
“It’s inconceivable to seize each side or all of his accomplishments in a easy publish in order to ‘make it an extended story quick.’”
