Former Bellator fighter William Joplin has passed away on Tuesday morning after a long battle with pancreatic cancer, according to his family. He was 41 years old.
Joplin’s sister, Shelley Joplin, confirmed his death on the page, which was initially established in September 2018. That page will remain active to help pay for his cremation expenses and memorial service. She wrote:
“It hurts to inform everybody but William Joplin lost his fight with Pancreatic cancer this morning. We could still use your help paying for cremation expenses and a memorial service.”
Joplin was diagnosed with cancer last year and posted an update on his page back in June where he indicated that his cancer had spread.
“Figured I would give an update an me so 2 weeks b4 my competition last the weekend b4 last I got results from ct scan and appears that it’s spreading to my colon so they are changing up my chemo this is the 2nd week of my new chemo of every 7 days for 3 weeks and off a week this week makes 19 rnds but blood count was too low I will still get treatment but they have to lower the dose but other than that not much change so that’s were we at.”
Known as “The Armadillo,” Joplin started his career in 20101, had an 18-15 record in his professional mixed martial arts. The Missouri native competed for a number of promotions including Titan FC, Shamrock FC, Victory Fighting Championship, Resurrection Fighting Alliance (RFA), and Bellator MMA.
Joplin competed in March 2018 for Bellator 195, where he lost a unanimous decision to featherweight contender, Juan Archuleta who was at the time making his own Bellator debut. Other prominent Joplin opponents included former UFC fighters Walel Watson and Pablo Garza and Jerrod Sanders.
