{"id":513639,"date":"2026-03-04T11:41:30","date_gmt":"2026-03-04T11:41:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/513639\/"},"modified":"2026-03-04T11:41:30","modified_gmt":"2026-03-04T11:41:30","slug":"jorge-pederson-rising-mma-fighter-from-minnesota-killed-in-texas-bar-mass-shooting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/513639\/","title":{"rendered":"Jorge Pederson, rising MMA fighter from Minnesota, killed in Texas bar mass shooting"},"content":{"rendered":"

A rising mixed martial arts fighter from Minnesota on the brink of making his pro debut was one of three people killed in a mass shooting in Austin, Texas<\/a> early Sunday.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Jorge Pederson, 30, had moved to Texas two weeks ago. The Glenwood, Minnesota, native graduated from North Dakota State University and co-owned Metro Movers with his friend, often recruiting fellow fighters to work alongside him.<\/p>\n

“He had a super dry sense of humor, and he was always trying to make people laugh,” said Andy Grahn.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Grahn first met Pederson when he was 15 years old, a lanky high school wrester at a grappling tournament. He was one of many grieving Pederson at the Academy Martial Arts Gym.<\/p>\n

“A lot of these guys were crying and they were wearing sunglasses when they came in,” Grahn said.<\/p>\n

Pederson joined Academy in 2020, ready to commit to the martial arts.<\/p>\n

“He would give that shirt off his back for people. He, that man could talk to anyone,” said Joshua Fleck, who worked for Pederson’s moving company.<\/p>\n

In a statement, his family called him “a very healthy, loving, funny young man” who was “passionate about Muay Thai and MMA and was going to go pro in May.”<\/p>\n

The say they’re overwhelmed by the outpouring of condolences.<\/p>\n

On the mat, he was relentless.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“Competing, learning from those competitions, taking on whatever person was in front of him. He didn’t pick and choose,” said Greg Nelson, who owns the Academy.<\/p>\n

Fleck said while his friend’s life was cut short, it offers an important lesson.<\/p>\n

“Jorge accomplished in a short amount of time, what a lot of people don’t get to do. And he always chased his dreams and he never let anything stop it,” Fleck said.<\/p>\n

An online fundraiser has been set up in Pederson’s honor to help his family pay for a funeral service.<\/p>\n

\n More from CBS News\n <\/p>\n

In:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A rising mixed martial arts fighter from Minnesota on the brink of making his pro debut was one…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":513640,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[49,48,641,59618,638,82],"class_list":["post-513639","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-fighting","tag-mass-shooting","tag-mma","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/513639","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=513639"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/513639\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/513640"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=513639"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=513639"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=513639"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}