Legendary MMA coach and ex-competitor Jeffrey “Duke” Roufus has died at the age of 55, his business partner Scott Joffe announced on social media Friday night.<\/p>\n
Roufus’s MMA journey took shape through kickboxing as he won multiple titles during the 1990s as a competitor.<\/p>\n
Following his retirement from competing, Roufus became a well-known trainer as he founded Roufusport MMA academy in Milwaukee, Wisc., operating it with Joffe.<\/p>\n
He worked with many notable names in the UFC, including former champions Belal Muhammad, Anthony Pettis, Tyron Woodley, Rose Namajunas and Jens Pulver.<\/p>\n
“His knowledge, charisma, and passion inspired countless fighters to reach heights they never imagined possible,” Joffe said in his post. <\/p>\n
“From world champions to first-day students, everyone who crossed his path felt his genuine care and unwavering belief in their potential … The culture he built \u2014 rooted in respect, hard work, and family \u2014 will live on through the fighters, coaches, and students who proudly carry his torch.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Legendary MMA coach and ex-competitor Jeffrey “Duke” Roufus has died at the age of 55, his business partner…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":221199,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[49,48,641,638,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-221198","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mma","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-fighting","11":"tag-mma","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221198","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=221198"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221198\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/221199"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=221198"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=221198"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=221198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}