Background and career
Donald Frye (born November 23, 1965) is an American former mixed martial artist, professional wrestler, and actor. In MMA, he was one of the sport's earliest well-rounded fighters and won the UFC 8 and Ultimate Ultimate 1996 tournaments and finished as runner-up at UFC 10 in his first year of competition. He retired from MMA in 1997 to pursue a career in professional wrestling with New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW) After spending four years as one of Japan's top gaijin wrestlers, he returned to MMA with the Pride Fighting Championships in September 2001, much more muscular and sporting an American patriot persona in response to the September 11 attacks. He fought bouts with Ken Shamrock and Yoshihiro Takayama during his two years in Pride. He departed the promotion to compete in K-1 and Hero's in 2004 but returned for the final Pride event in 2007. He was inducted into the UFC Hall of Fame in 2016.
Frye was born of Irish and Scottish descent. As a child, Frye moved frequently due to his father's service in the Air Force. Frye has recounted being molested on three different occasions in his childhood, which he believes contributed to his lifelong anger problems and underage use of alcohol beginning in the fifth grade. He dabbled with multiple sports in his childhood including little league baseball, judo, and boxing, but initially disliked wrestling upon his first exposure. Frye describes fighting a sole amateur boxing match in the eighth grade, knocking his opponent down before getting his nose broken. He recounts that he quit the sport afterwards at his mother's insistence. He began wrestling at Buena High School in Sierra Vista, Arizona, then in college for Arizona State University in 1984, where he was trained by fellow future Ultimate Fighting Championship competitor, assistant wrestling coach Dan Severn. Frye recounts his collegiate wrestling career being interrupted by a shoulder injury, sustained after Frye crashed an ATV while intoxicated. In 1987, after returning from a yearlong recuperation, he won the freestyle and Greco-Roman events during an Olympic qualifier, but lost at the 1988 Olympic national trials.[1] A year later, he transferred to Oklahoma State University–Stillwater, where his teammates included future colleague Randy Couture.[2] After college, Frye trained in boxing for a year and a half and made his professional debut on August 28, 1989, in Phoenix, Arizona, scoring a first-round knockout over Luis Mora. After eight bouts over the next fourteen months he retired and became an emergency medical technician and a firefighter in Bisbee, Arizona. He boxed under the name J.R. Frye in several matches after being forced to change his name due to a contractual dispute. In his final boxing match, Frye lost via technical knockout to David Kilgour of Somis, California, at the Reseda Country Club in Reseda, Los Angeles on December 11, 1990, bringing his professional record to two wins, five losses and one draw. Frye also worked in a psychiatric ward but left that position after breaking a patient's arm while restraining him. During this time, he also took up judo and earned the rank of second dan black belt.
In 1995, Don Frye helped train Dan Severn for the Ultimate Ultimate 1995, accompanying Severn's entourage to Denver. He soon made the jump to the burgeoning sport of mixed martial arts himself and joined the Ultimate Fighting Championship the following year. Debuting at UFC 8 in Bayamón, Puerto Rico on February 16, 1996, Frye was among the eight competitors in the openweight tournament that night and was one of two fighters of the era skilled in both stand-up and ground fighting, the other being Marco Ruas. In the quarter-finals, he set the record (since broken by Duane Ludwig and Jorge Masvidal) for fastest knockout in UFC history when his punches knocked down 410-lb Thomas Ramirez in just eight seconds. After a quick technical knockout of Sam Adkins in the semis, taking him down and landing hammerfists to the face for the TKO, he met with Gary Goodridge in the final, and forced the Trinidadian to submit simply by gaining dominant position at the 2:14 mark, though not without landing multiple uppercuts standing and punches on the ground. This would be the first in a trilogy of fights between the pair. Due to the controversy surrounding MMA at the time, Frye was barred from both firefighting, his previous occupation in his hometown of Sierra Vista, Arizona, and from training in the Buena High School gym he had used since his ASU days following the event.[3] Frye returned at UFC 9 in Detroit, Michigan on May 19, 1996, for a match with fellow tournament winner Marco Ruas, but Ruas was injured and replaced by Brazilian jiu-jitsu stylist Amaury Bitetti. Frye stopped his opponent's takedowns and land punches, knees and elbows, and used a judo ude-garami on the jiu-jitsu champion, something that was unusual at the time. At the end, after an especially hard series of strikes to the spine and head of the Brazilian, the match was stopped and Frye was declared winner. At UFC 10 in Birmingham, Alabama, on July 12, 1996, Frye returned to tournament format. He defeated Mark Hall by stoppage, slamming the Moo Yea Do specialist and working his side with body punches until the stoppage, and then defeated Brian Johnston, again leading the action to the mat and landing elbows to the head. However, at the finals of the event, Frye faced Mark Coleman, who was considered the "godfather" of the ground and pound strategy Frye often followed. Coleman, a more decorated wrestling champion than Frye himself, kept the top position through the match and landed multiple strikes to the face. Frye capitalized on a failed neck crank attempt to get standing and try to outmatch Coleman there, but he was taken down again, and a late takedown attempt of his own also failed, with Coleman reversing and threatening with an overhead throw before returning to his routine. At the end, after Coleman secured side mount and dropped punches and headbutts onto Frye's face, the referee stopped the action, handing Frye his first loss in seven fights. Frye won at the U-Japan event in November 1996, taking a submission victory by forearm choke over Mark Hall in a rematch. Just one month later, Frye entered the UFC's Ultimate Ultimate 96 tournament, held to find the best of the best from past tournament winners and runners up. He firstly went for the second time against Gary Goodridge, who brawled on the clinch before taking Frye down and landing headbutts, but the result was the same, as Goodridge tapped out as soon as Frye got dominant position. Frye then faced Mark Hall for the third time in his career, but this fight was even shorter, with Frye getting a takedown and an Achilles lock for the give up in 20 seconds. In the finals, Frye faced striker Tank Abbott, who landed early shots, opening a cut on Frye's face and causing swelling. However, Abbott lost his balance and fell, allowing Frye to secure a rear naked choke, to take the title of Ultimate Ultimate 96 Champion, his second UFC Tournament Championship. Hall would later claim that Don Frye and manager Robert DePersia convinced him to throw the two fighters' semi-final match. Hall says that since Tank Abbott had already advanced to the final after two relatively easy wins, Frye – who'd logged eleven minutes of cage time already that night – wanted to save his energy for the championship match. Because he'd already suffered two defeats to Frye earlier in his career (and therefore probably wasn't going to win anyway) and DePersia implied that saying no would have a disastrous impact on his future, Hall says he reluctantly agreed to go along with the plot. Referee John McCarthy later wrote in his autobiography Let's Get It On!:
Unfortunately, this night was the second time I felt I was refereeing a fixed bout. In the semifinals, Don Frye and Mark Hall met in a rematch of their UFC 10 bout. In their first encounter Frye had beaten the piss out of Hall, who'd refused to give up. Here, though, Frye ankle-locked Hall to advance to the finals without breaking a sweat. The fight struck me as odd. Frye, a bread-and-butter wrestler and swing-for-the-fences puncher, had never won a fight by leg lock, and Hall practically fell into the submission. I also knew both fighters were managed by the same guy. Despite his success in MMA, Frye retired from the sport after winning the Ultimate Ultimate '96 tournament.
A successful celebrity in Japan due to his pro wrestling career, Don Frye made his comeback to mixed martial arts when he signed a multi-fight contract with the Pride Fighting Championships in 2001. Appearing in an MMA bout for the first time in five years at Pride 16 in Osaka, Japan on September 24, 2001, two weeks after the September 11 attacks, Frye entered the ring waving an American flag and wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with the words "terrorists suck". He was also noticeably more muscular and seemingly stronger than his UFC days, having gained 7 kilograms (15 lb) in weight since his last MMA outing. However, his fight with Gilbert Yvel that night was controversial and resulted in Frye winning by disqualification in the first round, as Yvel repeatedly gouged his eyes and was eventually disqualified for continuously holding the ropes to stop himself being taken down. Three months later, at a joint New Year's Eve show Inoki Bom-Ba-Ye 2001: K-1 vs. Inoki, Frye defeated Cyril Abidi with relative ease, taking the French kickboxer to the mat and controlling him throughout round one before finishing him with a rear naked choke in two. Frye returned to Pride in February 2002, facing long-time rival Ken Shamrock at Pride 19 in a fight he had been trying to trash-talk himself into ever since Shamrock had defeated Dan Severn at UFC 6. Frye got the edge on a series of clinch battles, while Shamrock dropped down for an ankle lock and transitioned into both a kneebar and a toehold, wrenching Frye's leg badly; however, despite the damage, Frye refused to tap out and managed to knock Shamrock down in a subsequent punching exchange. The bout moved to the mat, where Shamrock attempted another ankle lock, only for Frye to try to counter with one of his own and finally refusing to tap out until time ran out. After an exciting and hard fought battle, Frye pulled out a split decision victory in which many people including the commentators Bass Rutten and Stephen Quadros said Ken Shamrock won the fight. Even though Shamrock had injured Frye's ankles, later leading to Frye's dependency on painkillers for several years, the two hugged after the fight ended, putting an end to their rivalry. Many MMA fans agree that both fighters were never the same again, as both their careers began a steady downturn after the fight. Four months after defeating Ken Shamrock, Frye returned to MMA to face Japanese professional wrestler Yoshihiro Takayama at Pride 21 on June 23, 2002. In a fight described as the single-greatest brawl in MMA history, Frye and Takayama clinched in a hockey fight pose, each holding the head and hitting, with Takayama finally going to the body after more than a full minute of unrelenting, undefended shots. This would happen three times in the fight, until the referee stopped the bout after Frye mounted Takayama, who was visibly much worse for the wear. On August 28, 2002, he took on Jérôme Le Banner in a kickboxing match at the K-1/Pride co-promoted event Pride Shockwave, fighting in front of 91,107 people. Frye had mentioned in an interview prior to the fight that (besides knee strikes) he had never thrown a kick in his life and his disadvantage was obvious as he couldn't use his wrestling skills and was repeatedly thrown when he tried to tie up with Le Banner. After being given a standing eight count early on, he was forced into a corner and knocked unconscious with a right hook at the 1:30 mark of the first round. Riding a new wave of popularity, Frye's next outing was a return to MMA at Pride 23 on November 24, 2002, to face Olympic gold medalist judoka Hidehiko Yoshida. Taking his first loss since fighting Mark Coleman in 1996, Frye was submitted by Yoshida via armbar in the first round. While Frye did not tap out, the referee stopped the bout in fear of serious injury. Frye took seven months off following the losses to Le Banner and Yoshida, and next fought at Pride 26 on June 28, 2003, to try to avenge his loss to Mark Coleman. In a rather long battle, Frye lost a unanimous decision to Coleman after three rounds. Another rematch was on tap for Pride Shockwave 2003 on New Year's Eve, 2003 when Frye faced Gary Goodridge for the third time. The fight lasted only 39 seconds; Goodridge scored a vicious high kick to the head, knocking Frye out completely.
Don Frye departed Pride on the back of four consecutive losses and next appeared fighting under MMA rules in K-1. His first fight, with Yoshihiro Nakao at K-1 MMA ROMANEX on May 22, 2004, ended in a no contest when Frye could not continue due to a cut sustained from an accidental headbutt early in round one. Don Frye and Yoshihiro Nakao rematched at K-1 Premium 2004 Dynamite on December 31, 2004, with Nakao coming out on top and winning a unanimous decision, resigning the American to his sixth unsuccessful fight. After another brief retirement, he returned in K-1's Hero's branch in May 2006 to fight Akebono at Hero's 5. Akebono spent much of the fight clinching with the much smaller Frye and pushing him into the ropes, but Frye was able to knock the former sumo wrestler down and secure a guillotine choke submission in the second round. Just ten days later, in his first appearance in the United States since 1996, Don Frye took on Ruben Villarreal in King of the Cage: Predator in Globe, Arizona. After three rounds of what many considered to be a lackluster fight, the bout was ruled a draw. In his sophomore Hero's fight, he defeated Yoshihisa Yamamoto at Hero's 6 on August 5, 2006, using the rear naked choke towards the end of the first round. In his last appearance in the promotion, Frye faced Kim Min-Soo at Hero's 7 on October 9, 2006, and knocked him out with a right hook in the second round.
