One glance at the photo of Randy Couture and Mark Coleman wrestling in the 1992 NCAA Finals inspired this entire rankings. Photos like this give us a quick peek into a tiny slice of the past, and looking back into the past of famous mixed martial artists is fascinating. In this particular look back, we can glimpse at a luxuriously maned young Randy Couture, and a 23 year-old Mark Kerr, weighing only around 200 pounds, but already built like a thoroughbred horse.
Hindsight is interesting, but putting yourself in Couture and Kerr’s March of 1992 position and looking forward is what really captures the imagination . Eight years after they met on the mat as college students, they would find themselves in remarkably different positions in their athletic careers. By 2000, mixed martial arts, led by major promotions like Pride and the UFC, really started establishing itself as a distinct athletic discipline, and the first year of the new century would mark the time when Kerr and Couture would turn onto the path that would seal their legacy in this brand new sport.
Heading into the year 2000, Kerr had earned a reputation as one of the scariest men in the world. Three years into his fighting career he had never lost, and all his eleven wins ended in a stoppage. As a fighter, he was a brutish pioneer, demonstrating just what sort of devastation a man can inflict on another using top-level wrestling skill and freakish physical power. In May of that year, however, Kerr lost a prize fight for the first time at the hands of Kazuyuki Fujita, a result which marked the beginning of the end for ‘The Smashing Machine’. After his first loss, Kerr’s career went into free fall. Over the next eight years he would go 4-11 in fights, and degenerate into a shadow of his old self.
2000 treated Couture differently. After retiring from wrestling for good, ‘The Natural’ would enter the UFC for the second time and go on a run which would see him face and beat many of the best fighters in the world, winning UFC championships four separate times in the process. In 2011 he finally retired, claiming one of the longest and most decorated careers in combat sports history.
Eight years before all this, Randy Couture, MMA’s greatest statesman, and Mark Kerr, MMA’s greatest cautionary tale, faced off over a different sort of championship, as they battled each other to win first place at 190 pounds in the 1992 Division I NCAA Wrestling Championships in Oklahoma City. There Kerr bested Couture, despite the latter wrestling in front of legions of his Oklahoma State University fans.
Speaking of Oklahoma State (OSU), I did a little research and discovered that the Cowboy wrestling team has won approximately one gazillion NCAA team wrestling titles, more than any other school by a good margin.
OSU has secured its place at the top of the college wrestling world through great coaching and savvy recruiting, the latter of which has brought them to mine unusual sources for elite talent. Over the years, OSU wrestling has brought in great athletes from high schools nationwide, top junior colleges and lower division universities. They have even looked to countries like Russia and Japan to find stars to wear their iconic orange singlets. In one case, they even nabbed a national champion directly off the University of Iowa’s roster.
As for Randy Couture, OSU picked him up as a 28 year-old coming out of the United States Army. Then Cowboy head coach Joey Seay knew a good thing when he saw it; Couture was a mature athlete, decorated high school wrestler, product of the elite U.S. Army Greco-Roman wrestling team and had a generous amount of NCAA eligibility remaining. Couture joined Seay at OSU, stepped into the lineup at 190 pounds and quickly left his mark. In three years of competition at OSU, the Army veteran claimed three All American finishes at the NCAA tournament, and finished as the runner up twice.
While Couture’s run to the 1992 NCAA finals at 190 pounds came as little surprise to anyone, Kerr’s 1991-92 senior season at Syracuse almost arose from nowhere. Entering his last year of college wrestling, Kerr brought with him a respectable, but not eye-catching, winning percentage of roughly 75%, and he had never won a single match at the NCAA tournament in only three appearances.
Despite the previous stumbles on the national stage earlier in his career, everything seemed to come together for Kerr’s final year of college wrestling. During the regular season of 1991-92, Kerr won over thirty matches while losing only three, and earned the fourth seed at the NCAA tournament. Kerr’s magical run continued at NCAAs where he beat Ohio State’s top seed, and one-time UFC fighter, Rex Holman in the semis before facing second seed Randy Couture in the finals.
I’ve never watched Kerr and Couture’s NCAA finals match, but if the score is any indication, the bout featured little action. Kerr won by the score of 12-4, a fairly sizable margin. The few pictures available suggest that Kerr had a noticeable size advantage over Couture, who was not small for the 190 pound weight class. The difference in horse power may have just proved insurmountable for Couture.
After they faced each other in the NCAA wrestling finals, and before they embarked on the bulk of their legendary MMA careers, both wrestlers competed successfully in Olympic-style wrestling on the Senior circuit, Kerr in freestyle and Couture in Greco-Roman. Each would represent the United States at the World Championships, and place in the top 10. In 1996, both would finish second in line for an Olympic berth. Of particular note, in the final wrestle offs for the 1996 Olympics, Kerr fell to eventual gold medalist Kurt Angle
Update: Due to changes in the internet, I am no longer able to verify that Kerr was the runner up in the 1996 Olympic trials. Below, however, is video of Kerr and Angle wrestling in the 1995 World Team Trials final wrestle off
Now with Kerr and Couture both safely tucked into their retirement from prize fighting (at least I hope Kerr is retired), these impressive athletes can look back with pride in the knowledge that the combination of MMA fame, and the prestige of the NCAA finals, a finals which netted them the top spot in the ranking of the 20 greatest wrestling matches between MMA stars.
Fun Bonus Fact #1: Two other MMA names pop up in the 190 pound bracket for the 1992 NCAA Championships: Jeff Monson (then wrestling for Oregon State), and long time regional MMA stalwart Johnny Curtis (George Mason University).
Fun Bonus Fact #2: The following teams had wrestlers at the 1992 NCAA Wrestling Championships:
Delaware State, Boston University, Notre Dame, Central Connecticut, Eastern Illinois, Slippery Rock, Clemson, Liberty, San Diego State, Syracuse, Cal State Fullerton, Seton Hall, California University of Pennsylvania, Oregon, Illinois State, Miami University, Brigham Young, Fresno State, Marquette, Drake and Morgan State.
All of the programs named above no longer exist.
[Note to readers: Through a shocking level of boneheadedness, I ranked the Cormier and Lawal match twice (#4 and #2). I meant to rank the 2001 World Team Trials wrestle off between Matt Lindland and Dan Henderson as the number two match. I will create this entry as a bonus next. I don’t know what I was thinking, I apologize]