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<h3><a href="/go=news.detail&gid=451401" target="_blank">
Rest in Peace Kevin Rosier
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<p>Rest in Peace Kevin Rosier, <span class="st">January 6, 1962 to </span>April 13, 2015.</p>
Professional boxer and kickboxer Kevin Rosier went 1-1 at UFC 1 on Nov. 12, 2003, beating Zane Frazier via head stomps, before losing to Gerard Gordeau. He went on to compete in kickboxing until 1999, MMA until 2000, and boxing until 2001. The lifetime of fight sports, often unregulated, took its toll.
Joel Rice, editor NashvilleScene.com, profiled Rosier for their Face in the Crowd section in August of 2013.
Kevin Rosier is sitting in a white rocking chair in front of The Manor at Steeplechase, a retirement community in Cool Springs. It's a rather unremarkable senior-citizen scene, save for one striking incongruity: Kevin Rosier isn't exactly a senior citizen. In fact, at 51, he happens to be one of the Manor's youngest residents — a role he mischievously relishes. ("How are you, gorgeous?" he calls out to an octogenarian doddering past him.)
William Blake tells us that the road to excess leads to the palace of wisdom. In Rosier's case it also leads to The Manor at Steeplechase and that row of white rocking chairs.
Born to a French-Canadian farming clan in upstate New York, Rosier started studying "the sweet science" of boxing at a Boys & Girls Club. By 16 he was sufficiently intimidating to be hired as a bouncer at some notorious Buffalo nightspots. After shuttling between aunts and uncles for most of his adolescence, he began a noted fighting career that included boxing, karate, Muay Thai, kickboxing and mixed martial arts.
"I had a lot of heart," Rosier says. "I did them all."
Some of his fights were mainstream affairs. But much of his career is a blur of cages in Moscow, darkened pits in Thailand and Yakuza-infested dens of iniquity in Japan. (One MMA bout was dubbed "Mayhem in Mississippi.") Rosier also fought in the very first UFC championship in 1993, and was featured in a recent Sports Illustrated piece on the event.
"I paid my dues. I paved the way. Now it's a billionaire industry," he said.
All the while Rosier was working as a bodyguard for entertainers like Rick James ("He was always nice to me"), Billy Idol ("He was an idiot") and Debbie Harry ("Let's just say she enjoyed life, and leave it at that"). Nightclubs like Studio 54, Limelight and CBGB frequently retained his services as a bouncer.
"I prefer the term 'quality-control engineer,'" he says.
Though Rosier cannot always recall the who/what/when of a life spent in the ring, the body has a way of failing to forget. Open-heart surgery and a nearly fatal fall while already in intensive care are only half the story.
"I'm lucky to be alive," he says.
Having spent most of the past decade in and out of VA hospitals, the white rocking chair here in suburban Nashville may hold a certain uneasy appeal.
"When the party's over, the party's over," he says.
Now comes word that the fighter has passed at just 53 years of age.
Marc Raimondi writing for MMAFighting.com spoke with UFC co-creator Art Davie about his memories of the colorful fighter.
"He was the halest and happiest guy at the [UFC 1 after] party," said Davie said. "He was so proud that he had won that first bout."
Rosier was happy before the fights, too. Davie recalls finding him bed pre fight with a naked woman. He was staying with an ex-wife at the time,had a root canal that week, and survived on white rice, hot sauce, and snickers bars.
"I asked him, 'Kevin, are you going to be f---ing ready?'" Davie said. "He says to me, 'Arturo, when I come in that right hand is going to settle this whole thing. I'm going to show you.' He was in indefatigable. You couldn't seem to put him down emotionally. He seemed to be very buoyant that week."
Beyond the bodily love of life though, what Davie recalls above all was Kevin Rosier's kindness and lack of ill will.
"That's my memory of Kevin," said Davie. "A big, lovable lug who had a heart as big as he was."
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