"Hello everyone. A lot of you have wondered how I got into submission grappling. Well one day I got this call from some guy who said "the best Jiu-Jitsu fighter in the world is in town, do you want to fight him?" I said "what are the rules?" The guy tried to intimidate me by saying "There are no rules!" I didn't know what to think. Were we going to gouge each others eyes out or bite each other's throats out. Thinking it might end in disability or even death for one of them, I said "O.K., tell him to meet me in the BYU wrestling room a week from Thursday". When the day arrived, I walked into the BYU wrestling room and saw a latino looking guy with the front of his head shaved and the back of his head he had a long braided pony tail. He looked like the muay thai guy in "Kumite". He was sitting on his butt scooting into BYU Head Coach Alan Albright, trying to hook Alan's feet with his feet. Alan just kept pushing him away. So I walk in and he comes over and says "Are you the guy". I said "yep". Then he said, unlike the caller who said it was "no rules", "What I do is punch, elbow, knee, head butt, but we're not going to do that today. We'll just roll around and try to get each other in submission holds, and if one of us gets caught, we tap out". Relieved there wasn't going to be a homicide that day, I still didn't know any submission holds and I spent a lot of energy trying to invent new moves on the spot. After about about 20 minutes of me being on top of him while he either had me in the guard or I had him in a cradle, I tapped out from a triangle choke. I asked him to go again and he tapped me out again after about another 20 minutes. I was stunned. All the years of training and I had never learned these moves. Lucky for me, I picked wrestling as my sport so the transition would only require learning some new positions and moves from those positions. The mat sense and conditioning would be the same and wrestling takedowns were better. I asked him his name and he said "Rickson Gracie", who was perhaps the most skilled Jiu-Jitsu expert in the world. There was also a student of Rickson's in the wrestling room that day named Pedro Sauer.
but of Oklahoma University where he spent 3 years from 1981 through 1983 winning 3 NCAA Championships. Mark was named the NCAA Outstanding Wrestler his junior year for defeating everyone in his weight class which included NCAA Champion Matt Reiss and 2-time NCAA Champion Ed Banach. Schultz was the NCAA Champion his sophomore year at 167 lbs but moved up a weight to challenge Banach who was on course to become the first man ever to win 4 NCAA titles. Schultz defeated him 16-8. The next year Schultz went undefeated and set the Oklahoma University record for most victories without a loss in a single season. In 1984 Mark and Dave Schultz both won Olympic Gold. Dave Schultz is the only 1984 Olympic Champion to win the 1983 World Championships and Mark is the only 1984 Olympic Champion to win the 1985 World Championships. Mark became the first Olympic Champion to add 2 additional World Titles in 1987 tying the U.S. record for World Golds with Lee Kemp. In 1996 after 8 years in retirement Mark made a comeback and competed in UFC 9 and won.
