Snake Pit USA Catch Wrestling | Team Quest MMA
SNAKE PIT U.S.A. COACHES ASSOCIATION ANNOUNCEMENT: We are very excited to announce and welcome our most recent addition to the Snake Pit U.S.A. Coaches Association/Board of Directors:
UFC VETERAN, COACH MATT “THE LAW” LINDLAND
Coach Matt Lindland, one of the founders of Team Quest in Portland, Oregon, is one of the world’s most renowned and respected coaches in wrestling and MMA.
Matt attended Clackamas Community College and won a NJCAA National title before matriculating to the University of Nebraska where he went 33-1 his senior year and won the Big 8 title. That same year Matt won the Free-Style National Title at the University Level.
A year after college Matt won his second National Title in Free-Style and won the Pan-Americans that same year beating Alberto Rodriguez Hernandez from Cuba. Matt had a tough decision to make, Free-Style or Greco-Roman, so he entered both styles at the US Open where he made it to the quarterfinals in Free-Style and semifinals in Greco.
Matt ultimately decided to focus on Greco-Roman and that same year he moved to Colorado Springs to train full-time at the Olympic Training Center and made the US National Greco-Roman Team. Lindland won the silver medal at the 2000 Sydney Olympics and took again took home silver at the world championships the following year.
Lindland started mixed martial arts training with Randy Couture, Dan Henderson and others at Team Quest. He won four fights in the middleweight division of the Ultimate Fighting Championship before losing to Murilo Bustamante in a championship match at UFC 37. Matt fought in three weight classes; Middleweight, Light Heavyweight and Heavyweight and still managed to compile an impressive professional MMA record of 22-9 before retiring from the sport.
Matt founded the North West kids wrestling program and coached at two of the top wrestling clubs in the U.S. Cobra Wrestling and Peninsula. That same year, Matt also started working with future UFC star Chael Sonnen at West Linn High School. In 1996, Matt moved back to Lincoln, NE to take a job as an assistant wrestling coach at the University of Nebraska where he coached until 2000. During his tenure at Nebraska, Coach Matt coached NCAA champions and multiple All-Americans.
In 2000, Matt started coaching wrestling and MMA at his Team Quest gym in Portland. In 2013 he coached the U.S. Greco-Roman world team in Budapest, Hungary and in May of 2014 he was named USA Wrestling’s National Greco-Roman Coach.
We are thrilled to have Coach Lindland as a member of the Snake Pit U.S.A. Coaches Association/Board of Directors and Team Quest, Portland Oregon as an official affiliate club of Team Snake Pit U.S.A.
