Jordan Breen was the smartest guy in the room, but never wanted that label.
The death of Breen was a blow to anyone who followed his immense coverage, colorful personality, and many personal anecdotes of their interactions.
It is rare that someone so young conjures such nostalgia for a different period of MMA journalism, with Breen’s name at the forefront of influential voices in the sport, who helped form the language in which the sport was learning to speak.
Born in June 1987, Breen was barely out of high school when he was hired at Sherdog, the industry standard and brand of record when it came to mixed martial arts coverage. Chief among its features was the famous FightFinder – a database culling records and shows from every conceivable promotion under the sun and going well beyond the UFC, Strikeforce, King of the Cage, and PRIDE.
Breen was a key architect of the database as he had an unlimited curiosity to uncover any fights taking place in the world, under any ruleset, any time zone, and whether there were 10,000, 5,000, or five people in attendance. A byproduct of this organization of data was Breen’s unequalled memory, where the history of MMA appeared to be operating between his ears on a twenty-four-hour loop.
His mind worked nonstop and the only fuel necessary was for a contemporary to utter a name from the sport’s past, present, or even future, and Breen would process and respond with a, “Dude”, before launching into a miniature biography, guaranteeing you were leaving that conversation more informed than you entered it.
He joined Sherdog in June 2006, right as the UFC boom was in full effect and the sport was in a fascinating period. During that window of time, the UFC had just brought Royce Gracie back as a nostalgia act to fight welterweight champion Matt Hughes and set a UFC pay-per-view record (which lasted just over a month before it was shattered at UFC 61). The third season of the Ultimate Fighter was winding down with Tito Ortiz and Ken Shamrock as they prepared for their rematch, four years after their first dance. Meanwhile, the MMA world was still trying to make sense out of the IFL and the viability of the Seattle Tiger Sharks and Quad City Silverbacks.
It was a different era in MMA where the dominant news sites were limited to Sherdog, MMA Weekly, Wrestling Observer, and forums like The Underground.
Sherdog, founded in 1997 by Jeff Sherwood, boasted some of the top names in the media space, with Breen working alongside Josh Gross, TJ De Santis, Jack Encarnacao, and Greg Savage among its roster.
Within a year, he was given his own show, aptly named The Jordan Breen Show, and would become a staple voice on the Sherdog Radio Network’s Roundtable previews, Beatdown After the Bell, and later shows such as Cheap Seats and Press Row.
The site also operated outside of the margins, finding itself cast out of UFC press access, and gave the site a notoriety of being truthtellers while not seeking any invites to the party.
Breen demonstrated this approach to MMA journalism, covering the real news topics of the sport on Press Row from the death of Tim Hague, the underbelly of Japanese MMA, commission regulation, and the UFC’s monopsony power in the industry. Breen had the rare gift of having all this knowledge stored inside and being able to communicate it in an engaging and digestible form. It made for must-hear audio when he would take a subject and dive headfirst and leave you with an understanding of why these stories matter.
He had a fearless approach to his style of work without a concern for who he might upset, acknowledging the elephants in the room, and finding the hot button issue of the moment and slamming it down. For Breen, MMA’s DNA was baked in the “absurd”, closer to the circus than it was mainstream sport. He reveled in these aspects, never losing sight of the thesis statement that the emperor had no clothes, regardless of television deals, sponsorships, pay-per-view distribution, and mainstream coverage.
The media space was shifting, and Sherdog would see many of its pillars leave the site, with Breen remaining a constant thread, until he, too, would exit. With TJ DeSantis, the two worked together on Between Rounds Radio, where they took the essence of the Sherdog ethos into the world of Patreon.
Additionally, Breen began writing for Bloody Elbow, which was a perfect fit for a site (at the time) reflecting the type of work he enjoyed and allowed him to flex his exceptionally underrated writing skills.
It was hard to imagine Breen working at any of the major sites and being on the day-to-day beat, as he was largely left to his devices at Sherdog and letting his mind take him to the next show. There was definite interest in places such as MMA Fighting, but it didn’t go anywhere, and he quietly faded from the scene while also experiencing the loss of his mother, and he struggled with addiction and mental health issues.
After living in Toronto for many years, he returned home to Nova Scotia. Eventually, he stopped posting on X three years ago, becoming a name that came up now and then regarding whatever had happened to…
I was privy to more than most over the last few years, but his closest friend in the media was Mike Bohn, who broke the news of his death. Bohn showed exceptional concern for Breen, going so far as to contact the police for a wellness check and to try to assure his friend he had help. If you knew Breen, help was not something he asked for, and despite his vocation, he did not crave attention or compliments.
The sport was better because of Jordan Breen, and regardless of what was going on in his life, when the red light was on, there was no one better.
He taught me many lessons without knowing it, and when you lose someone in your orbit, a lot of regrets–big and small–percolate in your head.
For me, I never took a photo with him, and that saddens me.
Jordan Breen was a righteous dude.
UPDATE:
Shortly after posting this story, I was sent this:
