Sherdog’s Top 10: Successful Olympic Crossovers

6. Matt Lindland

Few fighters have had as strange and diverse a career as Lindland. The accomplished collegiate wrestler at the University of Nebraska won the gold at the 1994 Pan-American games as a freestyle wrestler, but he found his greatest success in the Greco-Roman category, with multiple Pan-American championships, a second-place finish at the 2001 world championships and, most notably, a silver medal at the 2000 Olympics.

It is amazing and especially noteworthy that Lindland accomplished his greatest feats as an international wrestler while competing simultaneously as an MMA fighter. He had his first bouts in 1997 and made his UFC debut less than three months after winning his Olympic silver. That first run in the Ultimate Fighting Championship saw victories over Ricardo Almeida, Phil Baroni and Pat Miletich, along with a middleweight title loss to Murilo Bustamante. He also helped to found one of the first great training camps in MMA, Team Quest, along with Randy Couture and Dan Henderson.

Between 2004 and 2009, Lindland went undefeated as a middleweight and 10-2 overall, with the only losses to top pound-for-pound fighters Quinton Jackson and Fedor Emelianenko outside of his own weight class, and “The Law” could make a legitimate claim as one of the top 185ers in the world. All of that came crashing down with a terrifying knockout loss to Vitor Belfort in the defunct Affliction promotion in a bout that lasted only 37 seconds. Lindland went 1-3 in his last four fights before retirement.

Lindland had a long, strange and highly accomplished career -- we have not even touched on his business ventures, which ranged from allegedly stealing medical marijuana grown on land he owned to used-car dealerships and a successful run for the Oregon House of Representatives -- and one that deserves respect for its incredible diversity and longevity.

Number 5 » Ben Askren