Dean Lister has just become the eighth person to be inducted into the ADCC Hall of Fame, but he actually holds the honor of being the first American to earn inclusion. After the Hall of Fame opened with Roger Gracie, every single inductee since then has been Brazilian. In fact, almost half of the previous seven inductees were actually members of the Gracie family. Kyra Gracie was the first and still the only woman to be included in the ADCC Hall of Fame and Royler Gracie was the most recent addition before Dean Lister was given the nod.
Other than 66kg legend Royler, Marcelo Garcia has been the lightest male inductee to the ADCC Hall of Fame with Braulio Estima being only one more weightclass higher again. Aside from those three, the other male inductees have been in the heavier weightclasses like Lister and Roger. Andre Galvao was the second person to be included after Roger and Ricardo Arona joined the inaugural class not long after. Lister has undoubtedly earned his place in the Hall of Fame as he is one of very few American grapplers to ever win a triple crown of victories in his weightclass, the absolute division, and the superfight championship match.
Lister became only the fourth American to win gold at the ADCC world championships in 2003 when he conquered the absolute division despite going out in the second round of his weightclass against Xande Ribeiro. He then returned in 2005 to compete for the superfight championship against Jean-Jacques Machado. Lister took the title from him but did not return to defend his title in 2007 as he was focusing on his UFC career at the time instead. In 2009 he entered his weightclass and the absolute division again but couldn’t make it to the podium after going 1-2 at the event.
Then in 2011 he completed his triple crown achievement by winning his weightclass and finishing three of his four opponents with heelhooks, although he did not compete in the absolute division that year. Dean Lister has since made two more attempts to add to his medal haul at the ADCC world championships in 2013 and 2015, but he wasn’t able to do any better than a bronze medal and fourth-place finish in 2013 and two second-round losses in 2015.
Dean Lister was announced as the first American to be included in the ADCC Hall of Fame in a post to the promotion’s official Instagram account:
