Another week brings another induction into the ADCC Hall of Fame and the newest inductee is a man known in both the submission grappling and MMA worlds – Dean Lister.
A Brazilian black belt under Jeffrey Higgs, Lister spend eight years training and competing in a gi, but always had the ambition to transfer to the Mixed Martial Arts competition circuit. He found success in submission grappling, winning his first ADCC World Championship in the absolute division in 2003, defeating such renowned grapplers as Nate Marquardt, Saulo Ribeiro, and Alexandre Cacareco Ferreria. In 2005, he won a superfight at ADCC World Championship by defeating JJ Machado. “The Boogeyman” won his second ADCC World Championship in 99kg weight class in 2011 by submitting Radek Turek, Rodolfo Vieira, and Joao Assis all by leglocks.
Outside the ADCC competition, Lister was a Metamoris regular, where his bouts against fellow inductees Alex Ribeiro and Renato Sobral ended in a draw.
His exposure gained by competing at the elite level of submission grappling gave him the opportunity to fight in King Of The Cage, PRIDE Fighting Championship, and UFC. His professional MMA record is 13 – 7 with 11 wins coming by the way of submission. He defeated Pride mainstay Akira Shoji, and Alessio Sakara, Yuki Sasaki, Jordan Radev and Jeremy Horn in the UFC. He also lost to eventual title challengers Marquardt and Yushin Okami in the UFC. “The Boogeyman”’s grappling prowess was also highlighted to the audience of The Ultimate Fighter 3 in 2006, where Lister served as assistant coach to Tito Ortiz. The Okami loss served as his last fight with the organization, and he went 2-1 in the three fights afterwards, only losing to another eventual UFC title challenger in Thales Leites. He last competed in combat sports in 2015, although he was scheduled to face Craig Jones in Submission Underground in 2019.
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