Don Frye

Donald Frye (born November 23, 1965) is an American former mixed martial artist, professional wrestler, and actor.

In MMA, he was one of the sport's earliest well-rounded fighters and won the UFC 8 and Ultimate Ultimate 96 tournaments and finished as runner-up UFC 10 in his first year of competition.

He began wrestling at Buena High School in Sierra Vista, Arizona, then in college for Arizona State University in 1984, where he was trained by fellow future Ultimate Fighting Championship competitor, assistant wrestling coach Dan Severn.

In 1987, he won the freestyle and Greco-Roman events during an Olympic qualifier.

A year later, he transferred to Oklahoma State University–Stillwater, where his teammates included future colleague Randy Couture.

After college, Frye trained in boxing for a year and a half and made his professional debut on August 28, 1989, in Phoenix, Arizona, scoring a first-round knockout over Luis Mora.

After eight bouts over the next fourteen months he retired and became an emergency medical technician and a firefighter in Bisbee, Arizona.

He boxed under the name J.R. Frye in several matches after being forced to change his name due to a contractual dispute.

In his final boxing match, Frye lost via technical knockout to David Kilgour of Somis, California, at the Reseda Country Club in Reseda, Los Angeles on December 11, 1990, bringing his professional record to two wins, five losses and one draw.

Frye also worked in a psychiatric ward but left that position after breaking a patient's arm while restraining him.

During this time, he also took up judo and earned the rank of second dan black belt.

In 1995, Don Frye helped train Dan Severn for the Ultimate Ultimate 1995, accompanying Severn's entourage to Denver.

He soon made the jump to the burgeoning sport of mixed martial arts himself and joined the Ultimate Fighting Championship the following year.

Debuting at UFC 8 in Bayamón, Puerto Rico on February 16, 1996, Frye was among the eight competitors in the openweight tournament that night and was one of two fighters of the era skilled in both stand-up and ground fighting, the other being Marco Ruas.

In the quarter-finals, he set the record (since broken by Duane Ludwig and Jorge Masvidal) for fastest knockout in UFC history when his punches knocked down 410-lb Thomas Ramirez in just eight seconds.

After a quick technical knockout of Sam Adkins in the semis, taking him down and landing hammerfists to the face for the TKO, he met with Gary Goodridge in the final, and forced the Trinidadian to submit simply by gaining dominant position at the 2:14 mark, though not without landing multiple uppercuts standing and punches on the ground.

This would be the first in a trilogy of fights between the pair.

Due to the controversy surrounding MMA at the time, Frye was barred from both firefighting, his previous occupation in his hometown of Sierra Vista, Arizona, and from training in the Buena High School gym he had used since his ASU days following the event.

Frye returned at UFC 9 in Detroit, Michigan on May 19, 1996, for a match with fellow tournament winner Marco Ruas, but Ruas was injured and replaced by Brazilian jiu-jitsu stylist Amaury Bitetti.

Frye stopped his opponent's takedowns and land punches, knees and elbows, and used a judo ude-garami on the jiu-jitsu champion, something that was unusual at the time.

At the end, after an especially hard series of strikes to the spine and head of the Brazilian, the match was stopped and Frye was declared winner.

At UFC 10 in Birmingham, Alabama, on July 12, 1996, Frye returned to tournament format.

He defeated Mark Hall by stoppage, slamming the Moo Yea Do specialist and working his side with body punches until the stoppage, and then defeated Brian Johnston, again leading the action to the mat and landing elbows to the head.

However, at the finals of the event, Frye faced Mark Coleman, who was considered the "godfather" of the ground and pound strategy Frye often followed.

Coleman, a more decorated wrestling champion than Frye himself, kept the top position through the match and landed multiple strikes to the face.

Frye capitalized on a failed neck crank attempt to get standing and try to outmatch Coleman there, but he was taken down again, and a late takedown attempt of his own also failed, with Coleman reversing and threatening with an overhead throw before returning to his routine.

At the end, after Coleman secured side mount and dropped punches and headbutts onto Frye's face, the referee stopped the action, handing Frye his first loss in seven fights.

Frye won at the U-Japan event in November 1996, taking a submission victory by forearm choke over Mark Hall in a rematch.

Just one month later, Frye entered the UFC's Ultimate Ultimate 96 tournament, held to find the best of the best from past tournament winners and runners up.

He firstly went for the second time against Gary Goodridge, who brawled on the clinch before taking Frye down and landing headbutts, but the result was the same, as Goodridge tapped out as soon as Frye got dominant position.

Frye then faced Mark Hall for the third time in his career, but this fight was even shorter, with Frye getting a takedown and an Achilles lock for the give up in 20 seconds.

In the finals, Frye faced striker Tank Abbott, who landed early shots, opening a cut on Frye's face and causing swelling.

However, Abbott lost his balance and fell, allowing Frye to secure a rear naked choke, to take the title of Ultimate Ultimate 96 Champion, his second UFC Tournament Championship.

Hall would later claim that Don Frye and manager Robert DePersia convinced him to throw the two fighters' semi-final match.

He retired from MMA in 1997 to pursue a career in professional wrestling with New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW) and quickly became one of the company's leading heels.

After spending four years as one of Japan's top gaijin wrestlers, he returned to MMA with the Pride Fighting Championships in September 2001, much more muscular and sporting an American patriot persona in response to the September 11 attacks.

He fought bouts with Ken Shamrock and Yoshihiro Takayama during his two years in Pride.

He departed the promotion to compete in K-1 and Hero's in 2004 but returned for the final Pride event in 2007.

He was inducted into the UFC Hall of Fame in 2016.

Frye was born of Irish and Scottish descent.