Matt Hume

American martial artist

Matt Hume (born July 14, 1966) is an American former professional mixed martial artist, trainer, and businessman. He is the co founder and head trainer at AMC Pankration in Kirkland, WA. Hume and his AMC team have trained several champions and world class fighters including Josh Barnett, Demetrious Johnson, Bibiano Fernandes, Tim Boetsch, Jeff Monson, Bob Sapp, Chris Leben, Hayato Sakurai, Akira Shoji, Matt Brown, Rich Franklin, and Caros Fodor. Hume has been the Senior Vice President of Competition for Singapore based combat sports promotion ONE Championship since 2012.

Hume grew up in Kirkland, Washington. His father was a Seattle police officer and his mother was a housewife and later a nurse. His father had trained under Bruce Lee and began Matt's judo and boxing training at age four. Hume began folkstyle wrestling in elementary school and started coaching after graduating from Lake Washington High School. Hume attended Highline College for one year and finished his degree at Central Washington University. He credited his Highline wrestling coach Ron Wallick as being a major influence. While attending CWU in 1988, Hume started a pankration club, inviting all wrestlers, boxers, and other martial artists to train. He originally learned about pankration as a child while attending wrestling camps hosted by Athletes in Action. He won his second fight against veteran and future UFC fighter Scott Bessac via rear naked choke, but lost his next 3 fights against Ken Shamrock, Manabu Yamada, and Jason Delucia. Hume rebounded by submitting Scott Sollivan with an armbar in under a minute, but lost against Minoru Suzuki by points in his final Pancrase fight.

Hume made his professional debut in submission wrestling on October 11, 1997 at The Contenders, an event that pitted submission grapplers against amateur wrestlers. He faced Olympic wrestling gold medalist Kenny Monday, winning via submission in under a minute. On March 20, 1998, Hume competed at the inaugural ADCC Submission Fighting World Championships. He defeated Micah Pittman and Luis Brito but withdrew due to injury before facing John Lewis.

In 1993, Hume founded United Full Contact Federation in order to sanction amateur pankration events. Hume was the rule director and official trainer to both PRIDE Fighting Championships and Dream.