Legendary kickboxer and mixed martial arts coach Duke Roufus passed away in Milwaukee on Oct. 17, 2025, but it wasn’t until recently that an official ruling on his cause of death was revealed.
Roufus died from heart disease, the Milwaukee County Medical Examiner has ruled. An autopsy was performed four days after his passing and last month the medical examiner wrote in a report, obtained by the California Post Monday, that the final cause of death was hypertensive and atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease.
The medical examiner deemed it to be a natural death, with obesity, congestive heart failure and atrial fibrillation all contributing.
Roufus was found dead in his bed by a neighbor who had been asked to check in on the former fighter after he did not pick up his 12-year-old daughter from school that day, according to the medical examiner’s investigation report.
According to the report, Roufus had last been seen alive in public on Oct. 16, 2025 at his daughter’s volleyball game, the report stated, where his ex-wife said that “he seemed to be more tired than usual since he came back from Dubai two weeks ago.”
Roufus’ father Pat expressed concern to the Medical Examiner’s Office the night of Roufus’ death that his son “may have been forgetting to take his prescription medication during his time in Dubai, as he was very busy,” according to the investigation report.
