Kevin Jackson
Olympic Result: Gold, 1992
Four-time UFC veteran Kevin Jackson competed at just three UFC events, considering he first appeared during the single-night tournament era. At UFC 14 in 1997, Jackson won the UFC light heavyweight tournament, defeating Todd Butler by TKO, then submitting Tony Fryklund.
That earned Jackson a spot in the UFC’s history books, but he had already made Olympic history years earlier. At the 1992 Summer Olympic Games in Barcelona, Spain, Jackson earned gold in freestyle wrestling in the 82kg category. An NCAA Division I wrestler who already had earned gold at the Pan American Games in 1991 (he would repeat that in 1995), Jackson had clearly established himself as a dominant force in wrestling.
Jackson’s career in MMA, and the UFC, was a short one. Ahead of the 1997 tournament, he admitted he’d never taken a punch. He breezed through the competition that night, but facing Frank Shamrock for the UFC’s inaugural light heavyweight title later that year, he fell in just 16 seconds via submission. A second submission loss to Jerry Bohlander resulted in his exit from the promotion; he’d defeat Sam Adkins outside the UFC in 1998, then call it a career.
