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Written By: Julia Brabant, December 2025A Fighting Chance: Summit Fighting Championships Founder Jamie Houston Honors a Friend’s Legacy Through Support of Pancreatic Cancer Research
A strong mentor’s impact doesn’t stop with a single person, and this was certainly the case for Jamie Houston’s friend and mentor, David Ferguson. While David, a longtime trainer, commentator and fixture on the combat sports circuit, passed away from pancreatic cancer earlier this year, his influence lives on through the family he created, the fighters he guided and the efforts Jamie now leads to support pancreatic cancer research in his honor.
Jamie founded Summit Fighting Championships, the premier MMA fighting event in the southeast, in 2013, growing it from a small, regional operation into a nationally known production. David was a steady presence the whole way, popping up initially as the referee of Jamie’s first-ever fighting match and then as a professional mentor, with Jamie training and teaching fitness kickboxing at David’s gym before eventually branching out to open his own.
When David passed from pancreatic cancer in early 2025, it was a devastating loss, not only to Jamie, but to David’s wife, Kandace, their children and loved ones, and the entire combat sports community. While everyone handles grief differently, Jamie chose to channel his into something he suspects David would have done – donate his time and talents to improving outcomes for other people with pancreatic cancer through advocacy, awareness and fundraising efforts.
That commitment will soon come to life in the form of Summit Fighting Championships’ inaugural Ferguson Invitational, set for Saturday, Jan. 10, 2026, at the Landers Center in Southaven, Mississippi. Created to honor David’s life and legacy, the black-tie, reserved-seat event benefits the Seena Magowitz Foundation, funding clinical trials and research efforts that improve outcomes for people with pancreatic cancer.
It’s an event Jamie and his team plan to turn into an annual affair, pairing their love of MMA – and David – into an impactful platform with a dedicated purpose: raise funds, increase awareness and make progress toward better outcomes for the more than 65,000 new Americans diagnosed with pancreatic cancer every year.
