MMA Fighting senior writer Chuck Mindenhall recently wrote what is easily one of the best stories of the year, titled In Search of Strange Brew…
“Whatever happened to Jason Thacker, the quirky Canadian that trained out of the old abandoned truck stop?” asked Mindenhall. The show that saved the UFC, The Ultimate Fighter 1, featured the likes of Forrest Griffin, Stephan Bonnar, Mike Swick, Josh Koscheck, Diego Sanchez, Kenny Florian, Nate Quarry, Chris Leben, and a Canadian fighter who never competed in MMA before named Jason Thacker.
Thacker, who did not grow up in privilege, was bullied on the show. The closing sequence on the first episode shows him lying in his bed, not realizing that another fighter had urinated on it.
Thacker predictably failed, and when he got back home, bar fought numerous times with detractors, even taking a pipe to the face at one point.
“I had to change my phone because I was getting death threats,” says of the time. “I had a stalker and stuff like that. I was getting death threats and getting into fights and getting attacked when I went out. This wasn’t something like at Chute Boxe where five guys have my back. I was all by myself.”
He now cares for disabled family members. He doesn’t have kids, or a wife, or a girlfriend, or a cell phone, or a car, or a job, or friends.
When asked if the show ruined his life, Thacker says it did.
MMA was not good to Jason Thacker. But it can be now.
“I was signing hats, and posters, and they said they’d give me one poster, and one hat,” said Thacker. “I wanted one of those shirts that said, PEOPLE WERE HARMED DURING THE FILMING OF THIS SHOW, you seen those? I wanted one of those shirts. I never got one.”
It would be cool and appropriate if the powers that be at the UFC gave him that hat and tee, and whatever other nice momentos they have of the season that saved the company.
And for us, a fan has set up a GoFundMe page. If you have the means and the inclination, a donation, however modest, would be deeply appreciated.
