Mark Kerr is one of the greatest American grapplers and MMA fighters of all time, but he only ever put on a gi for one training session. Kerr was an NCAA Division I champion in wrestling and had a successful career as a freestyle wrestler afterward, before branching out even further. Kerr made his professional MMA debut in 1997 and quickly becoming one of the most fearsome fighters in the world, earning his famous nickname ‘The Smashing Machine’. He won two UFC heavyweight tournaments and had a lengthy PRIDE career, eventually retiring with a 15-11 (1) record after spending a decade fighting against the very best in the world.
Although Kerr was best-known for his MMA career, he was an incredibly successful submission grappler too. Kerr won gold at ADCC 1999 and became a double champion the very next year, before also adding the coveted superfight title to his collection in 2001. He left the sport after losing the superfight title, but his incredible 13-1 ADCC record and multiple titles was more than enough to secure him a place in the ADCC Hall of Fame. Kerr revealed in a recent interview that he didn’t have quite as much success in the only gi training session of his career:
“I’ve done gi with Rigan Machado one time. That was it. And that was one time only. It was like giving him an extra set of f***ing hands! We were at a studio in Torrance, so he had a wall on one side and the other side. The door was open where I go, ‘Oh yeah, I’ll go gi with you.’ And so we go gi, and I’m just getting frustrated. I’m getting really frustrated. Everyone’s kind of poking their head around the door, looking in. like ‘what the f**k?’. I don’t even remember how long we went, but it was like one of those things going ‘I’m never doing this again. Like never f***ing doing this again.’ Like I’m getting up and going, ‘We’re going gi-less, bro.’ It’s just positions I could not figure what the f**k he was doing (in), because I just didn’t have that… it’s the nuances. It’s the small, little stuff.”
The full interview with Mark Kerr where he talks about the only gi training session he’s had was uploaded to the official YouTube channel of the Jaxxon podcast:
