Matt Hume has done just about everything. He competed in boxing, kickboxing, Thai boxing, submission grappling, Pancrase, and NHB. What makes this even more impressive is that he has done extremely well in every one of them. On top of that impressive resume, Hume has added trainer of champions. Hume has excelled at teaching with an impressive list of students that include: UFC Champion, Lance Gibson, Super Brawl Champions, Josh Barnett and Chris Franco, Abu Dhabi Champion, Jeff Monsen, and NHB standouts, Anthony Hamlett and Dennis Hallman, to name a few. In his "free time," Hume started the United Full Contact Federation (UFCF) because he saw that the world of NHB needed some organization. Everything this man of many talents touches seemingly turns to gold. I have met Matt at Super Brawls, but never got a chance to talk to him in any great length, so I called him on April 26th, 2000 and luckily, caught him a day before he was flying to Japan in order to be a judge at the second round of the Pride Grand Prix 2000.

FCF: First off, what does the AMC mean in AMC Pankration?
Matt Hume: It's American Martial Arts Center.

FCF: Was that the school's original name?
MH: Haru Shiminishi originally was the founder of it. It was originally called AMC Kickboxing. And then Haru and I hooked up and it became AMC Kickboxing and Pankration Center.

FCF: You have been all over the place and done just about everything. What got you into the martial arts?
MH: Oh boy, growing up in the Seattle area…you know, Bruce Lee was out here back then and there was a lot of martial arts going on. My father was a police officer and he did some Judo and some police stuff and he boxed. I started boxing when I was real young. The martial arts kind of enthralled me and I kind of separated the combative sports like boxing and wrestling away from the martial arts. But now I feel that those are the true martial arts. But back then the Bruce Lee craze and the Kung-Fu kind of intrigued me. It was like magic. So that, and my dad, was what kind of steered me to it.

FCF: You said that you trained in boxing and wrestling, which some people arguably say is a martial art, [I believe it is.] but what other types of martial arts have you trained in?
MH: I trained in Karate. The style was called Shito-Ryu Karate. Wing Chun…with people who have trained in other styles, I've trained in a lot of different things, you know, trading techniques and things like that. I also trained in Tae Kwon Do. But none of those really were applicable to what Pankration ended up being.

FCF: Who were some of your most influential teachers?
MH: Boy, that's a tough question because there were a lot of people that were influential other than the people who taught me. Boxing wise, I would definitely say Bill Spur was an influence on me. He was my first boxing coach and Sports Illustrated named him as amateur coach of the year. Back then we had a great boxing team here in Kirkland. Bill Spur for boxing and of course, Haru Shiminishi for Thai boxing. He taught me my Muay Thai and Maurice Smith was a good influence for Thai boxing. He was a part of AMC before he started his own gym. Wrestling-wise, I had coaches from junior high through college. Ron Wallick was my coach in junior college and he was probably the biggest influence, not technique-wise, but just on him being hardcore. And the other wrestlers that were in the room with me in my first year at the junior college, was probably the first time that I had that many talented guys around me. That brought my level up. So it was really just the whole team. That was at Highland Community College. I did one year there, before going on to Central Washington University. But what I got through that carried on through the rest of my university experience.

FCF: What types of competitions did you participate in?
MH: Boxing, kickboxing, Thai boxing, wrestling. I have even done point Karate, freestyle and collegiate style wrestling, Pancrase, Extreme Fighting, submission wrestling at Abu Dhabi, pretty much ran the gambit of all those sports.

FCF: How did your training take you into competing in NHB?
MH: Well, what I always did, even when I was in college, before there was any real NHB officially going on at the time. We trained with the Pankration concept. I knew how to box and I knew how to kickbox and I could spar with those guys and I was wrestling at the same time. I knew that in a fight you had to have both. Even the guys who were really good, better than me at one style, I knew that if it was an actual fight, I could use my other styles to beat them. So we got a club together in college at Central [Washington University] and I invited all the martial artists, wrestlers, boxers, everyone on campus up there to train under that concept. And when I got back to the Kirkland area here, I hooked up with Haru and started competition for the WKA for kickboxing and Thai boxing. Maurice Smith was in the gym at that time. He was doing some pro-wrestling matches with the Pancrase guys over in Japan. And then those guys started Pancrase. Maurice told them about me and the reporters were real intrigued with the fact that Pankration and Pancrase were similar in the name. So the reporters came over and filmed Todd Bjorthen and I doing an exhibition match and then Ken Shamrock came over and checked us out and we started in Pancrase shortly after that. From there, a lot of the guys had liked the submission holds and started doing the UFC stuff and they were doing the local competitions. One of my guys got put into Extreme Fighting II and there I met up with John Peretti and I got put into Extreme Fighting III and it kept going from there.

FCF: When did you start using the term Pankration?
MH: I first started using it to my style of fighting when I was 19 [years old]. When I was in college

FCF: Did you get the term off of that Arvanitis guy?
MH: No. [laughs] I never met him or talked to him. One of my coaches, a guy named Doug Smith, he coached for athletes in action, a Christian wrestling camp. One of the tools that he used as a witness tool was to talk about Pankration. Even though most people had never heard of Pankration at that time, it truly did exist, even though it was just a word. And he kind of used that in relation to Jesus Christ. And so I learned about it through Doug Smith and his work at the Christian wrestling camps. It really intrigued me so I started looking into those concepts and I had been training that way since I was a child, cross training, using all the martial arts and combative sports together. I decided that this is what I had been doing, so I wanted to put together my own style of Pankration together.

FCF: What was it like competing in the "golden age" of Pancrase?
MH: Their showmanship was really good there. It taught me a lot about how to be a professional in front of a crowd because all those guys are pro-wrestlers, so they knew how to look and how to draw the crowds. Back then, we were drawing some huge crowds. The rules are not necessarily…well, they have a lot of unspoken rules, which makes it basically an ankle game there. When you have wrestling shoes on, it's real easy to get your career ended there real quick. You have to learn very fast how to play their game in order to survive. Being over there in Pancrase and watching guys get their knee blown out, and get fed to the lions basically, made my game go up in a hurry, in relation to learning how to deal with ankle and leg locks, so it was good just in that, along with learning how to be professional and even how to run an event. I took a lot of notes on how to run an event and I started running my own.

FCF: What were some of your toughest matches?
MH: Off hand, the first one that comes to mind is Erik Paulson. His style was so similar to my style. I had been out for two years before I fought him, so I wasn't really pacing myself well. He's a great fighter and a real professional who knows how to pace himself. Mentally, I really had to push through that fight and try and match him technique-wise at the same time. So that fight was probably my most difficult fight. But all my fights were difficult. Pat Miletich is a great fighter and it was also a difficult fight. That ended real early, but I could tell how skilled of a fighter he was. Physically, it wasn't as hard as the fight with Erik Paulson, but I could tell that he was a skilled opponent.

FCF: Which of the different rules and organizations do you prefer to compete under and why?
MH: The UFCF, our organization of course, is my preferred organization. And the Shooto organization would be right there too. Future Brawl uses both organizational bodies there in Hawaii. The reason that I prefer those is, they have large crowd followings and they put the sport first before the promotion of the event. You do need both, but being a sportsman coming from an extensive amateur background before I got into the pros, the integrity of the event and the people involved are real important to me. The UFCF and the Shooto commission both have amateur networks that lead into the professional networks and they stress the importance of skilled referees, skilled judges, and rules that make the fight fair and exciting for the crowd. They make it a true sport with rankings and champions and what every true sport should have.

FCF: Did you help with the formation of the UFCF?
MH: Yes. When I left Pancrase, I formed the UFCF and put on the first Pankration World Championships in Hawaii with a promoter named Matt Young. We did a couple shows and then T. Jay [Thompson, Super/Future Brawl promoter] started doing some shows. He started using the UFCF for the Super Brawl events. Then the UFCF had been going strong on an amateur basis in our home state of Washington. We re-organized it because we were having trouble with the athletic commission and the WKA not really having to deal with the boxing commission over here. So we formed our own sanctioning body, got our rules together and we actually had to sue the boxing commission to get rid of them. Actually, the threat of a lawsuit was enough. We offered our sanctioning body to the state. So, yes, I was the founder of it. And it's been around since '93 and going strong with amateur events and now with pro-competitions.

FCF: How many events other than Super Brawl does the UFCF participate in?
MH: We do a lot of different events. There's usually a couple fights here a month in the Pacific north-west, mainly here in Washington state and Vancouver Canada. There's lots of promoters in this area that are putting on fights consistently and have been putting on fights consistently for the past 15 years. We fight in Hawaii, Guam and Japan with Super Brawl and Shooto and now I'm involved with Pride as well. I'm going over there to judge. Hopefully we'll see some of our heavyweights in Pride and King of the Cage, I've got a guy in there, UFC of course, some guys fighting there, so pretty much all these events we're involved in.

FCF: Can you describe the type of training you do for an up coming match? And please be specific.
MH: It depends on who I'm fighting and where I'm at when I start. The elements that I like to separate when training are conditioning, sparring and technique. When I'm getting ready in a week, one day, I will come in and just spar hard. Another day, I would come in and just condition hard. And another day, where I've done two hard days in a row and my body's a little worn down, I will just come in and work technique. I like to do intervals in my conditioning. A lot of fast paced work followed by continuous training and then a fast pace again, not stopping after a 15 second burst, on a heavy bag, following by continuous punches and kicking on the heavy bag, where I'm never allowing my pace to slow down. Also my diet is very important when I'm getting ready for a fight. I eat a modified zone diet. It's kind of a diet that I've designed on my own based from the diet created by Barry Sears for professional football players and swimmers. I'm real careful about the amount of grams I eat of proteins, carbohydrates and fats. I'm trying to eat the same types of things with each meal. I'm at the point in my career where I can do a lot of the things by instinct. I do follow a regimented training schedule, which has been really successful in the past for me. But at this point, sometimes if I have injuries, I will go a little bit more instinctually when I come into the gym.

FCF: So you separate the three aspects into one whole day of training per aspect?
MH: Yeah, in the past I've done it on a schedule, but now I do it instinctually. When I step into the gym, I can do really what I feel like. If I'm worn down, it will be a technique day. If I'm not worn down and I'm ready to go, then that day can be a sparring or conditioning day. If I feel my timing's real good, but my conditioning is a bit lacking, then it will be a conditioning day. If I feel that I need to work on my timing and I'm a little bit rusty, then I spar that day.

FCF: What type of weight lifting do you think is optimal for NHB?
MH: I really don't advocate a lot of weight training for NHB. I've done a lot of weight lifting in the past, but I think that plyometrics exercises and some of the other exercises that we do, I don't know what to call it, but their more static strength exercises, like climbing rope and climbing around a person's body. Things like that are things we do on our conditioning training that builds strength. Those kind of things, I think, are more applicable to fighting than getting under a barbell. The best thing that I think that lifting can do for you is to keep you from getting injured. I do very little lifting. But when I feel like my body is not holding together well, I'll do some lifting. It always makes me feel better.

FCF: So you do basic lifts when you do?
MH: Yes, but when you lift weights, I think the Olympic lifts are the best for our sport.

FCF: We haven't seen you compete for a while, are you still competing?
MH: Yes, I plan to. [laughs] I can't say that I am because I haven't, but I still plan to. I had an ACL tear, where my ACL was completely torn in two and it's still in two pieces in the back of my right leg. But I have very strong attachments on the leg that hold it real stable, so I didn't have to get surgery. And I've got to a point where I can train real hard and it doesn't bother me, so I plan to train for about three months and as long as I can get through training without injuries, I will jump in and take something on short notice at that point, probably a tune up fight, not a top level opponent, then look to do something at a little higher level. I consider everything at this point, but when it comes time, I will have to narrow it down. But I don't rule anything out.

FCF: For the time being, you have turned your focus into building champions. Tell us about some of your more notable students.
MH: Josh Barnett, who just beat Dan Severn out there in Hawaii, he's a tough guy. He's like a kid, he just loves the game. And in the future, he's going to make some big waves. It's unfortunate that a lot of promoters don't want to use him because of his appearance. He's a little along the chunky side, but he's a great fighter. He beat Dan Severn about two months ago, and previous to that, he walked through the 8-man tournament in Hawaii, beating guys like John Marsh and the Extreme Challenge champion, Bobby Hoffman. He went through those guys without too much trouble, so obviously he's a great fighter and everybody would benefit from having him on the card. I would love to see him against an Igor Vovchanchyn or any of those guys, but unfortunately a lot of the promoters just don't like his look. I'm going to keep pushing him to keep working on his looks, getting his body fat down. Another heavyweight that we have is Chris Franco and he'll be fighting Rico Rodrigues coming up in King of the Cage real soon. He's got great potential too. His name's not out there much because he hasn't been fighting, but he won one of the Super Brawl's in Guam. His partner Lance Gibson was in UFC 24 and Lance is one of my fighters who has been doing good things. He's is just now fighting in his weight class. He has been fighting heavyweights for years and had mixed results in the heavyweight category, but was always real tough. And now he's fighting in the 187lbs class for Super Brawl and Shooto and the under 200lbs weight class for the UFC and he's had a lot of success at that weight. He's never lost at that weight. He beat Akihiro Gouno over in Hawaii for Shooto, who is one of the ranked Shooto fighters and he knocked out Jermaine Andre over in UFC 24 recently. He will do some great things in that weight class. Dennis Hallman is in the next weight class down, he's fought in the under 170lb and now he's down to 152lbs. He just had a fight with Kaoru Uno, the Shooto champion and it was a really good fight. The Japanese press wrote it up as a robbery. He dominated for the first two rounds and then Uno won the third round because Dennis gassed out. And they gave the decision to Uno, but it shows that Dennis was at that top level in the world at that weight class and he's the only one who beat Matt Hughes. He won the Extreme Challenge 8-man tournament and got Matt Hughes in the finals and choked Matt Hughes unconscious in 18 seconds, so he's another guy that the lightweight category in the UFC could benefit from. Shooto is already benefiting from him being in there and Super Brawl as well. I would like to see him in the WEF as well. And Jeff Monsen, he's mainly a submission wrestling guy for me right now. He's a pretty big name right now because he won the world championships [Abu Dhabi World Submission Wrestling Championships] last year. This year he took second. He will be coming out and doing some stuff at probably a lower weight class and you should see some good stuff out of him too. I will probably stick mostly with submission wrestling stuff for Jeff, maybe a Rings tournament or something like that. We're working on his striking right now. I'm going to keep him where he's at until trains a little bit longer.

FCF: How did you get into teaching?
MH: I have always been a wrestling coach, since I got out of high school. When I was wrestling in college, I coached high school and when I got out of college, I coached the local junior high and high school here. I have always been kind of the guy who always gets everybody together for some sparring sessions and things like that. I started a martial arts gym when I got out of college and I had a lot of students there. Most of the times I did it just to find sparring partners and then it started getting bigger and bigger and it turned into a school. So it's just something that I've always done and I love to teach and train people. For me, I'm a lot more nervous when I'm in the corner of a fighter than when I'm fighting myself, just because I take it a lot more serious.

FCF: What qualities make up a good teacher?
MH: Boy, there's a lot. I mean, I learn things from my teachers all the time. The first thing that you have to do as you have to know the sport and be a good technician, but even with that, there are a lot of good fighters that don't make good teachers because they don't know how to get it across. You have to have a great understanding of the technique and it's just as important to have the ability to transfer that knowledge. And that's kind of a gift that people either have or don't have. I think you can always work on it and make it better, but some people have a knack for it. The other thing is just how you deal with people. A lot of people think that the old school mentality is the best way, your hardcore on all the fighters, but a lot of my coaches were not that way. Like Haru Shiminishi, his philosophy is that you find a person's strengths and you build upon his strengths and you never go to the negative areas. You always stay positive with the people you are training. And he's built countless world champions. He's one of the greatest trainers in the world. In fact, I think that attitude is very important for a trainer.

FCF: You have a unique way of coaching your students. You use a "secret" code of numbers for combinations. Not too many instructors use this. Obviously I don't think you want to reveal what the numbers mean, so can you tell us the background of that method?
MH: Actually there a lot of people that know those numbers, and that's just part of our school. It comes right out of amateur boxing and I learned it as a child while in boxing. You hear someone say "throw the old one, two." You've heard that in boxing for years and we've just continued on with that philosophy and we have a numbering system that the guys train under all the time. So, when I'm yelling out numbers, they've heard those numbers and they've even had to do tests on those numbers in our school. And they know exactly what they mean, it's in their subconscious at this point. They know what to throw when I call it out. And it works a lot better than trying to yell out the names. The numbers are right in my head, so when I see an opening, I yell it out very quickly and they can respond to that very quickly. Whereas, if I told them to throw out a left jab and a right low kick, by the time that I get those words out the opening is not going to be there anymore.

FCF: So it's more for quick response than for hiding your instructions from the opponent?
MH: Well, it's both. The benefit of having it be a secret to the opponent was secondary to just continuing to do what I was taught as a fighter. As well as in the gym, a system that works for training people. Because even in the gym, I don't want to yell out technique after technique, when I can make the guys respond quicker to the numbering system.

FCF: What aspects do you think are most important for fighters?
MH: It's funny, a lot of people ask how do you become a world champion and there is only one world champion. So it takes a lot of things to put together to become a world champion. Just to be a great fighter, there's talent that they come in with, which is secondary to heart. Someone who comes in with a big heart and won't quit, and believes in themselves is probably the most important aspect of a fighter. If they believe in themselves, even to the point where they believe that they are going to become a world champion with me or without me, then that's a person that I can do something with. But they also have to be humble and respectful in order to bring that out in them. So, that and if you take a guy with talent and a humble attitude, and have that quiet confidence about him, that's a person that has all the attributes that you need.

FCF: What balance of technical training and conditioning do you believe is best if you are have a limited training time?
MH: It depends on what they want to get out of it. If they want to become a fighter, then they have to do what it takes to get ready for their fight. They can't shorten either one of them. They have to do everything that they need to do and they have to make the time to do it. They have to be fully conditioned and fully technical for their fight. If it's someone who doesn't want to fight, but wants to have fun with the sport, then I would say shorten the conditioning and have fun with the technique.

FCF: Where do you see the direction of NHB heading?
MH: Well, I hope it is heading toward becoming legitimate by getting under one major sanctioning body. My goal is to get all of the people who believe this is a true sport, all the promoters and commissions who want to push it in that direction together to have one ranking body that covers all of the fighters in mixed martial arts. And one sanctioning body that sanctions all the titles, so that whether the guys are fighting in the UFC, or Shooto, or Extreme Challenge, or Future Brawl, or Pride, they will be fighting under the same rules. That when we say that this is a mixed martial arts or Pankration bout that people know exactly what the rules are, just like boxing. And we know who's rank or what title this is for instead of having guys who are separated by the organizations or by the events that can't fight each other because of that and we have so many different champions thrown all over the place and we don't know exactly who the real champion is. That's where I see that it has to head if we want to legitimize it to the whole world. And hopefully, that's where we're heading.

FCF: Other than the fighters you mentioned previously, do you or your students have anything coming up?
MH: Well I'll give you a little run down of the pros that we have right now. Ryan Diaz is concentrating right now on his wrestling. He is going to start working collegiate and freestyle wrestling to improve his game. He will probably be fighting in Washington state here on July 29th. Anthony Hamlett, same thing, he will probably fighting on July 29th. Dennis Hallman will be fighting Din Thomas on June 10th, I believe, over in HookNShoot. We have a lot of amateurs that are fighting in different events locally. Among the bigger names, we're going to let Josh Barnett and Jeff Monsen enter the Rings tournament in Hawaii. Chris Monsen [no relation to Jeff, in fact, Matt told me that they have fought each other, but now are training partners.] will probably be in the Rings tournament too. I have Ivan Salaverry, who just fought in Hawaii. He will be taking a few months off, but when he comes back he will be doing some kickboxing. Kim Mason will be fighting here in Washington on July 29th. He just recently won the North American Kickboxing title. He's been training with one of my other fighters, Curtis Schuster. Curtis Schuster is a K-1 fighter, a world super heavy weight Muay Thai champion, great kickboxer. Curtis really helped Kim with his kickboxing game. So when people see Kim fighting in NHB again, they're going to see a much improved Kim Mason. And Curtis Schuster is having a new baby soon and we'll be looking to get him back into K-1 in a few months after the baby comes. And myself, I will be looking to do some stuff in about three months, with nothing scheduled right now. I know that I'm leaving a few guys out here, but…

FCF: Well, that's pretty good for going off the top of your head. [laughs]
MH: Yeah, there's quite a few fighters here.

FCF: What is that event on July 29th?
MH: It's a mixed martial arts show putting on UFCF and kickboxing fights in a local casino here in Rochester called the Lucky Eagle Casino. It's the first time that they have done any mixed martial arts or kickboxing matches. They have been doing boxing in there before and they have been trying to get us to do something for a while. They finally came through and made a deal with us. It looks like there are going to do at least one event and then do regular shows if this one goes well. Once everything is set there with the card and everything, I will put it out on the Internet.

FCF: Is there anything else you would like to add?
MH: No, other than that the mixed martial arts fans are some of the most supportive fans in the world. These guys are all over the Internet and are going to the events and they keep doing that. They keep pushing the legislators. I know in Hawaii they jump up every once in a while and we have to run over and try to quell over what is going on. I just want to thank the fans for backing all those efforts. When those things happen the fans are right there calling the legislators and the senators, I know that you have been doing that. And that's a great thing to have, fans that are that into the sport. You don't see that in other sports. So thanks fans! [laughs]

FCF: Well, I guess that I will see you at the next Future Brawl. Thanks Matt.
MH: Yeah, I will see you back in Hawaii. Thanks buddy.