Austin O’Connor has two NCAA wrestling championships on his résumé, but he always felt like MMA was his future.
Despite those two titles and becoming the first-ever five-time All-American from the University of North Carolina, the now 26-year-old prospect had designs on fighting after college was over. Part of that decision came down to loving MMA, but O’Connor was also realistic about his future in wrestling — a sport that sees most of its athletes dream of becoming an Olympic champion one day.
“There’s a lot of aspects that went into it,” O’Connor told MMA Fighting. “A big one for me was the weight classes. When you look at wrestling, you see the highest accomplishment of the sport would be the Olympics. Well, they take out 70 kg in the Olympics. Yeah, it’s a World [Championships] weight and I could be a World champ, but I want to be an Olympic champ. For me to either make 143 [pounds], which is 65 kg, or go up to 74 kg, which is, like, 165 [pounds], one’s too big, one’s too small, especially when it’s day-of weigh-ins. It was that.
“Making a U.S. team is almost as hard as winning the Olympics now. I could have done good in wrestling for a few years, but you’re competing against the best in the world in your country every single year. It’s tough to make those teams.”
That reality combined with an interest in trying MMA led to O’Connor speaking to his coaches at North Carolina about making some connections in the fight business.
The two coaches were four-time All-American Coleman Scott and assistant coach Jamill Kelly, who both wrestled at Oklahoma State. That just happens to be the same college that UFC Hall of Famer Daniel Cormier attended, and where all three became friends.
“One day I just asked them after wrestling, I’ve kind of been thinking about getting into MMA, you got any connections?” O’Connor said. “[My coach] said, ‘[Cormier] actually reached out to me a few weeks ago.’ I said you should have told me! He said he’ll reach out to ‘DC,’ and ever since then it just clicked. He’s been helping me out ever since for the past three or four years now.”
Teaming up with Cormier paid off in more ways than O’Connor could have imagined.
The former two-division UFC champion has served as a mentor, coach, and manager, helping O’Connor get set up with the best possible trainers and teammates to make the transition from wrestling to fighting as smooth as possible.
As he prepared to make his MMA debut, O’Connor traveled out to San Jose to work with Cormier at the American Kickboxing Academy, which is also home to a slew of champions including reigning UFC lightweight king Islam Makhachev and current Bellator lightweight titleholder Usman Nurmagomedov.
“I think he’s been a great mentor,” O’Connor said of Cormier. “He has me down at [AKA] training, he has the best partners surrounding me. He does a great job with me, just being in the room coaching me. He’s been a tremendous mentor. But I feel like he gets a little excited too trying to get me in there, get me to fight, and sometimes I tell him I have to slow down and take my time, and he’s very understanding about that too. He’s always in my ear like, ‘Come on! Let’s do this!’
“I think both of us are really excited about this first fight and seeing where my journey takes me. I’m sure he’s glad to be along for the ride. It’s been great working with him.”
O’Connor appreciates that Cormier took such an interest in him because it’s made his move into MMA much easier than most 0-0 prospects could ever imagine.
“I love it,” O’Connor said. “DC’s a great guy, a great person. He’s helped me out in any way I could imagine. I’m glad I was I brought in under his wing for my career. I know with him in my corner, I’m always going to be going the right direction, doing the right thing. I just got very lucky to have DC.”
As far as the future goes, O’Connor doesn’t want to get too far ahead of himself because he prefers to take everything day-by-day.
He understands there’s going to be a brighter spotlight on him than most up-and-coming fighters because he’s not only a two-time NCAA champion, he also has a legend like Cormier in his corner.
While he’s resolved to take things slow and easy in his fight career, O’Connor embraces the attention he’s going to receive now that he’s making his debut. In many ways, he’s already performed under intense pressure when he won his wrestling titles, and he actually relishes experiencing that same feeling now that he’s competing in MMA.
“I feel like the NCAA tournament, being in the NCAA finals is a pretty bright spotlight,” O’Connor said. “I’m used to that energy and that attention. I feel like my best matches have been under the spotlight.
“I’ve always performed well under the pressure. I don’t think MMA’s going to be any different. I feel like I’m ready to go. I welcome it.”
O’Connor fights on Fury FC 91 main card on Sunday, which airs live on UFC Fight Pass.
