Former UFC tournament champion Mark Kerr has been immersed in the world of MMA since his freshman year in high school, even if he didn’t know it at the time. That was in 1983, ten years before the first UFC. Kerr spent that freshman year working out with a grizzled senior by the name of Pat Miletich, another future UFC champ.

College was like another UFC all-star team. Kerr faced off with the now legendary Randy Couture in the finals of the 1992 NCAA tournament. “I had waited so long for it,” Kerr said. “I was an underperfomer and in my first three tries, I never even won a match. When I finally made it to the finals, I had my foot on the gas and never let up.”

Couture was a great collegiate wrestler, but Kerr made him look like a chump, winning the NCAA title by a score of 12-4. It was a tremendous victory, one that helped propel Kerr onto the national stage. Before he could make a run at the Olympic Games however, Kerr had to find the right weight class. Cutting down to 190 pounds, like he did in college, just wasn’t an option anymore.

“In that last year of college, for me to get down to 190 pounds, I had to cut 46 pounds from my preseason physical,” Kerr said. “Imagine that. So when the floodgates opened and I was able to eat all year long, my body just filled out. I had forgotten how comforting food is.”

Kerr fell short of his Olympic dream, losing to future gold medalist Kurt Angle in the qualifying tournament. Like many former wrestling standouts, Kerr followed a coach, Richard Hamilton, into the world of MMA.

“There was a dojo here in Arizona where many of us trained,” Kerr said. “He would come in to watch wrestling practice and established a relationship with Dan Severn and than Don Frye and then Mark Coleman and then me. He was responsible for getting the four of us started. When you think about it, that’s pretty impressive. That’s four UFC champions.”

Once he got started, Kerr quickly established himself as one of the most dominating fighters on the face of the planet. While Kerr enjoyed the monetary compensation, he found out right away that the fight game was far from glamorous. His first fight tournament was in Brazil, hidden away in the basement of a hotel. From there he moved immediately into the UFC where he won consecutive tournaments at UFC 14 and 15.

Then trouble started. Kerr’s contract called for one more tournament, but the UFC wanted to go another direction and book single bouts. Kerr saw an opening and looked to escape his UFC contract for greener pastures in Japan with the newly formed PRIDE Fighting Championships.

“They sued me in federal court and put me through every circumstance you could imagine,” Kerr said. “I’d get a phone call that would say you have to be in New York city to be deposed tomorrow. I’d pay $1000 on airline tickets and then they’d ask me three questions and send me home. It was ugly.”

In the end, Kerr bought the contract out and became an immediate icon in Japan for PRIDE. Most people in the sport considered him the best heavyweight in the world. Looking back, it’s hard to see that in retrospect. Kerr was an amazing wrestler and a solid all-around fighter. Unfortunately, he never faced the level of competition that would have allowed him to prove his worth. His first 11 opponents had a combined record of 60-51-2. More than half of the wins came courtesy of Pedro Otavio and Dan Bobish.

“I think the Japanese in some respects were protecting their prize product,” Kerr said. “Because they marketed me to the nth degree. I did their TV, their radio, their version of Johnny Carson, their Japanese game shows. I dressed up in a sumo suit on national television. They wanted to protect this opponent a little, so they put me against good opponents instead of great ones. I wish things had gone as originally planned. To get me to agree to go over there, they offered me what was then the ridiculous sum of $150,000 and a chance to fight Royce Gracie. I actually signed a fight poster with me and Royce Gracie and it said PRIDE 2. That would have been awesome and might have changed how people view me.”

While kickboxing champion Branko Cikatic and Luta Livre ace Hugo Duarte ended up being MMA busts, Kerr did face the best of the best in grappling competition. While many wrestlers stuck with the skills that brought them to the game, Kerr branched out into submission grappling and was nigh unbeatable. The same thing couldn’t be said in the ring. Igor Vovchancyn knocked Kerr out with illegal knees. Even though the fight was ruled a no contest, his life was soon spiraling out of control. The fall from grace was well documented in the film documentary The Smashing Machine.

“It kind of happened relatively quickly. It went from using to get through training sessions to a dependency where I couldn’t live without it to a place where I put myself in a position to overdose,” Kerr said. “It just so happened that I had okayed a film crew to come film at this particular time. It was nothing that was planned, but everything came together so we could document that. It’s meant a lot to me personally.”

Kerr took three years off before coming back to the ring, only to knock himself out with a powerful takedown against Japanese fighter Yoshisha Yamamoto. Kerr dropped Yamamoto so hard to the mat that his own head struck the ground and knocked him unconscious.

He stayed out of MMA for almost three more years after that, but has retuned to fight several times a year, losing six of his last eight and four in a row. Kerr will never be the same athlete again. It’s not just that he’s 40 years old. He also can’t risk putting himself into a dangerous situation by training full out like you need to at the top levels of the sport.

“It’s a fear of mine that if I put the amount of training in that the physical hurting will set in. You cannot train for mixed martial arts and not walk around in some kind of discomfort,” Kerr said. “Will I fall back into the same patterns? I have other means to alleviate those pains now. I have a great naturopathic doctor I go to. Plus all the stuff in my personal life is sorted out now. I’m a little older and a little smarter.”

Even an older Kerr can still be dangerous, at least that’s what he hopes going into the M-1 Global Challenge tonight in Kansas City. Although Mo Lawal will be the betting favorite by a large margin, Kerr still feels he’s got some tricks up his sleeve.

“I wish I had a little more time to prepare,” Kerr said. He took the fight on short notice after Don Frye backed out of the fight because of venue changes. “I didn’t sign the contract just to get a pay day. I signed the contract because I thought I could bring something to the table. He’s only four fights into his career. With four fights, you’re just getting and idea of what this sport takes. I’m hoping to slow him down and do some old fashioned ground and pound. Take him back to the woodshed.”

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