Kevin Christopher Randleman[1] (August 10, 1971 – February 11, 2016) was an American mixed martial artist, amateur and professional wrestler, and former UFC Heavyweight Champion.

He was previously associated with Mark Coleman's Team Hammer House, before training at Randy Couture's gym in Las Vegas, Nevada.

While in Iraq in 2008, Kevin traveled with other UFC fighters to visit the troops at the 4th Infantry Division's Modern Army Combatives tournament at Camp Liberty.

[10] Cornered by Coleman, Randleman made his debut on October 22, 1996 at Universal Vale Tudo Fighting 4 against Luiz Carlos Maciel, stopping him with punches in five minutes.

The latter controlled the first minutes from the clinch, attempting neck cranks and landing several punches, but Randleman skillfully escaped.

[11] In March 1997, Randleman returned to the promotion for UVF 6, in finding a difficult opponent in the first round in luta livre veteran Ebenezer Fontes Braga.

The American controlled the takedowns, but the Brazilian defended solidly with strikes both standing and from his guard every time, with Randleman attempting to sneak in ground and pound through the latter.

The bout soon turned controversial, however, as Braga would end up exiting the ring beneath the ropes several times, at some points even being externally helped by his team.

[13] After managing to finish him with punches, Randleman advanced the finals to meet Carlson Gracie's trainee Carlos "Carlao" Barreto, another famous BJJ fighter.

He beat Gustavo Homem de Neve in under two minutes, but he was then pitted against another decorated American wrestler, RAW team member Tom Erikson.

This fight became infamous due to Mark Coleman's instructions before the second overtime that Randleman "smear the blood" from the cut he had created above Rutten's nose into his eye, so his opponent would not be able to see.

Before his scheduled fight as the main event at UFC 24, Randleman slipped on some pipes and fell on the concrete floor, which rendered him unconscious.

His fight, scheduled with Pedro Rizzo, ended up taking place at UFC 26, Randleman won via unanimous decision.

On September 29, 2002, Randleman made his debut in Pride Fighting Championships, taking on Japanese wrestler Michiyoshi Ohara.

This winning streak would eventually put him in the spot of contender for the Pride Middeweight Championship, held by Wanderlei Silva.

His first round match up at PRIDE Total Elimination 2004 was against former K-1 kickboxer Mirko Cro Cop, a participant heavily favored to win the entire tournament.

With his tournament journey over, Randleman went on to square off against friend and fellow American wrestler Ron Waterman at PRIDE Final Conflict 2004.

Randleman picked up and slammed much bigger Waterman, and was ahead on the scorecards but made one mistake and lost by americana in the first round.

In the Opening Round of PRIDE's 2005 Middleweight Grand Prix, Kevin Randleman lost to Kazuhiro Nakamura via decision.

After recovering, he was scheduled to fight against Vitor Belfort at a Strikeforce event in San Jose, California on June 9, 2006, but was unable to, due to a recurrence of the infection.

This match-up was made partly to capitalize on an incident where Mark Coleman fought Rua and broke his arm with a trip takedown.

Chute Boxe and Hammer House members then entered the ring, clashing verbally and physically, creating bad blood between the two teams.

The Nevada Athletic Commission met on February 16, 2007, to discuss the fake sample and revoked Randleman's license to fight.

Doctors were forced to remove portions of Randleman's lateral and pectoral muscles in an attempt to eradicate the staph bacteria from his body.

After one year and seven months of lay off due to kidney problems, a staph infection and suspension, Randleman came back with a unanimous decision over Ryo Kawamura on May 18, 2008, at Sengoku 2.

In July 2003, Randleman started working for Pro Wrestling Zero-One, teaming up with The Predator to take part in the OH Tag Festival tournament.

They performed well, eliminating Yoshiaki Fujiwara and Yuki Ishikawa at the first round and Emblem (Masato Tanaka and Shinjiro Otani) at the second, but they lost in the finals to Naoya Ogawa and Katsuhisa Fujii.

In September 2007, Randleman made his last appearance in Hustle, defeating Kohei Sato and Piranha Monster alongside Coleman.

In February 2009, Randleman made a challenge to WWE pro-wrestler Kofi Kingston on a St. Louis FOX Sports MMA show called Absolute Wrestling Radio!