Former two-time North Carolina wrestling national champion Austin O’Connor is set for his mixed martial arts debut a month from now.
UFC Fight Pass dropped a new graphic and date for O’Connor to join the Fury FC promotion and get in the cage. He’s set to fight on June 9th at Fury FC 91.
He’s just the latest elite collegiate wrestler to transition to MMA.
He’ll fight Camden Fontenot for the first fight of his career. O’Connor most recently served as an assistant coach for Illinois this past season.
Dating back to April of 2023, O’Connor told On3 he had plans to do so. He wanted to manage both professions and had fighting aspirations after wrestling.
“I plan on getting a coaching position at North Carolina or something that I could stick around and help out,” O’Connor said. “But I want to just save up a little bit of money. And while I do that, I want to start training these other martial arts because I want to go into MMA.
“So I think kind of like a gap year of just being able to still train, get a like a secure job to save up a little bit money so that when I go into fighting, I kind of already have that background because I’ve been training for a full year while coaching and then just. I mean, fighting is a tough sport too. So I mean, if it don’t turn out at least I have a little safety net, you know?”
Of course, O’Connor ended up going into the Big Ten to coach this past season.
O’Connor went 112-10 in five seasons at UNC. He won a national title during the shortened 2021 season and went 23-0 in his final year (2023) to secure a title.
O’Connor won at 149 and 157 pounds, respectively.
In 2022, the Tar Heels star dealt with an ACL injury and only finished eighth at 157 pounds. The fact that he got to the podium was a victory in itself.
But that left him hungry for more in college wrestling. Originally, O’Connor didn’t want to use his extra year of eligibility from the COVID-19 waiver.
But since he didn’t go out with a second national title, he came back for 2023 to go out on top.
“Yeah, it was a long journey,” O’Connor said. “I mean, started as soon as the last season ended. I knew that I took eighth place. And I knew I wanted to be back at the top of the podium and I was willing to do anything to get there. So I had surgery about a week and a half after the season. Just started grinding on my rehab and training every day so I can get back to the top.”
Now, it seems like he has plans to get to the top in a new sport, with his debut just a month away.
