I’m a huge fan of combat sports, and in my humble but very loud opinion, there was no better time to be online and obsessed than 2014 to 2019. Twitter was peak chaos. The UFC was hitting its social stride. And the roster? Stacked with icons and lunatics. We’re talking the golden era: Roy “Big Country” Nelson, Rowdy Ronda Rousey, the permanently-suspended Jon Jones, Luke Rockhold’s jawline, and of course my favorites the Diaz brothers (war diaz IYKYK), who didn’t fight as much as they conducted vibes-based street therapy.
But if you asked me who won the last World Cup, I couldn’t tell you. If you asked me where I was on October 4, 2014? I’d tell you I was glued to the screen, watching Elias Theodorou, an actual Disney prince disguised as a middleweight, make his UFC debut.
The hair? Luxurious. The walkout? Electric. The vibe? Unmatched.
He was funny, charismatic, had the kind of fan energy you’d bottle and sell on Etsy. I followed his career like I was writing a thesis on it. I wasn’t tweeting much with the combat sports crowd yet, but trust, I was lurking. Fast forward to 2016: I was fully feral on #UFCTwitter, roasting announcers and live-tweeting weigh-ins like they were the Met Gala.
And you guys already know I have the receipts before you start with doubt.
Eventually, Elias and I started interacting online and he couldn’t have been nicer. Which is something I still hold dear to me to this day.
One day in 2018, he DMs me asking for my email. I don’t even ask why. It could’ve been for a kidney and I would’ve said yes.
A few days later, I get an email from a film director. They’re working on a movie starring Elias and want me to help promote it. It’s being crowdfunded, and they say if I’m down to post about it, I can have a small role. Like…in the actual film.
Me. I was going to be MMA Fan #1. In a real-ass movie.
We hit the ground running with social promo work.
I get the script. The title: Last Hit. A former MMA fighter gets injured via taint, ditches the cage, smokes weed, plays video games, and goes on a road to redemption. It was like Grandma’s Boy meets Rocky meets a dream I once had on NyQuil. The perks on the crowdfunding campaign were incredible. You could donate to spar with Elias or have drinks with him. Social media was chaotic and beautiful. It felt like we were all in on something special.
And then the emails stopped.
Suddenly, the project was “on pause.” Elias was quietly released from the UFC. No press release, no interviews. Just radio silence. It was weird, but Elias kept posting, always smiling, always positive. He said he was working on his cannabis company now. He didn’t seem worried and I just assumed he had so many bigger projects coming. An incredible athlete with insane marketability who was just scratching the surface of his legacy.
2 years passed.
On September 11, 2022, Elias Theodorou passed away from Stage 4 colon cancer. He was 34 years old.
The world lost a fighter, but his family lost their sun. He had quietly been battling the disease while still training, still competing, still championing medical cannabis. Before he passed, he became the first athlete in North America to receive a sanctioned exemption to use medical marijuana. He also lived out one of his dreams: becoming the world’s first-ever male ring card holder. Ring boy Elias. Forever iconic.
I never made it into that movie. But for a brief moment, I got to be a tiny pixel in the story of someone whose presence lit up the entire sport.
And Elias was one of the most down to earth people I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting. My mom is a huge fan of his, because duh, and just because I mentioned that, he asked for my address and next thing I know a package comes and it’s a signed 8×10 photo for my mom. SWOON.
When I was going through my archives of content, I came across this photo when I posted the picture and her and his response never made me think of anything bad at the time but looking back today, I sink thinking this is possibly a day he received an update about his cancer. This is why I always say use social media for good because you truly never know what the person behind the screen is going through.
If you don’t know who Elias was, do yourself a favor and type his name into YouTube. Watch the the best mane ever known in combat sports and keep his story alive. Watch the grit. Watch the joy. And maybe, for a second, let yourself believe that sports are about more than titles and knockouts.
They’re about the weird, beautiful, human moments in between and please go in for a colon screening, your family and friends need you.
About the Author
Yes, yap away about this one. What a terrific story told with love. 🫶