Mark Kerr has become the latest inductee to the ADCC Hall of Fame and after Dean Lister, he is now only the second American to be included. It should come as no surprise to anyone that Kerr has been honored alongside the greatest ADCC competitors of all time as he was only the second man to become a double champion and the first person to have to win eight consecutive matches in order to do so. His inclusion now completes the list of ADCC double champions being inducted into the Hall of Fame; other than the most recent person to add their name to the list, Gordon Ryan.
Before the ADCC world championships were even a thought, Kerr had already become an incredible wrestler. He was the 1992 NCAA Division 1 champion at 190lbs and then went on to win the 1994 USA Senior Freestyle Championships at 220lbs. This is when Kerr decided to pursue a career as a professional MMA fighter and he quickly amassed a perfect 10-0 professional record, winning two UFC Heavyweight tournaments at UFC 14 and 15 and several PRIDE fights. This was when he stepped on the ADCC mats for the very first time in 1999 and he put on a clinical display of elite wrestling with four straight wins in the over 99kg weightclass.
He returned in 2000 to have the exact same performance in his weightclass, but this time around he joined the absolute division and managed to replicate his feat there as well, winning two gold medals at this edition. In 2001 he challenged the only other double champion, Mario Sperry, for the superfight championship and he still couldn’t be stopped at this point either. In 2003, Mark Kerr came back to defend his superfight championship and finally lost his first and only fight at ADCC to fellow Hall of Famer Ricardo Arona, retiring from submission grappling in the process.
The induction of Mark Kerr to the ADCC Hall of Fame was announced in a post to the official Instagram account of the promotion:
