{"id":352174,"date":"2025-12-16T17:36:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-16T17:36:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/352174\/"},"modified":"2025-12-16T17:36:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-16T17:36:07","slug":"veteran-mma-fighter-dies-swimming-in-the-amazon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/352174\/","title":{"rendered":"Veteran MMA fighter dies swimming in the Amazon"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Mixed martial arts fighter Geronimo dos Santos was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mmafighting.com\/latest-news\/461838\/mma-veteran-geronimo-dos-santos-dies-after-drowning-in-river\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">found dead<\/a> after going for a swim in the Amazon.<\/p>\n<p>The body of the 45-year-old heavyweight known as \u201cMondragon\u201d was <a href=\"https:\/\/bncamazonas.com.br\/municipios\/bombeiros-acham-corpo-de-mondragon-em-corredeiras-do-rio-negro\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">discovered floating<\/a> near a beach more than a mile from where dos Santos dove into Rio Negro, a tributary of the Amazon River, according to Brazilian media. Fire department divers found the veteran Brazilian fighter Monday. He\u2019d been missing since Friday. Recovery efforts were reportedly hampered by strong currents and challenging terrain.<\/p>\n<p>Dos Santos\u2019 last MMA fight was in April 2019, according to<a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/mma\/fighter\/history\/_\/id\/2498641\/geronimo-dos-santos\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\"> ESPN\u2019s records<\/a>. He won 39 of the 60 bouts he fought over a career spanning more than 13 years.<\/p>\n<p>Fight site MMA Fighting credits him with competing in 72 matches.<\/p>\n<p>His last fight was a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bkfc.com\/fighters\/alexey-oleinik\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship bout<\/a> against former UFC heavyweight Aleksei Oleinik. Dos Santos won that showdown convincingly in a first-round knockout.<\/p>\n<p>He was reportedly expected to fight in UFC 153, but was barred from that 2012 event in Brazil after<a href=\"https:\/\/www.mmafighting.com\/2014\/8\/14\/6002227\/brazilian-heavyweight-geronimo-dos-santos-released-from-the-ufc\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\"> testing positive for hepatitis<\/a> B. Dos Santos\u2019 manager claimed his fighter was treated for the viral infection and cured. Dos Santos was<a href=\"https:\/\/www.ufc.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\"> released from his UFC contract<\/a> following that cancellation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mixed martial arts fighter Geronimo dos Santos was found dead after going for a swim in the Amazon.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":352175,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[2574,64,63,11308,10851,2976,786,192894,785,85],"class_list":["post-352174","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-amazon","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-brazil","tag-dead","tag-fighter","tag-fighting","tag-geronimo-dos-santos","tag-mma","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352174","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=352174"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352174\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/352175"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=352174"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=352174"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=352174"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}