Tom Erikson
American amateur wrestler, mixed martial artist and kickboxer
Tom Erikson (born July 6, 1964) is an American former amateur wrestler and mixed martial artist who competed in the super heavyweight division. Weighing between 125 kg (276 lb; 19.7 st) and 139.8 kg (308 lb; 22.01 st) throughout his career, "The Big Cat" began wrestling at an early age and was twice National Junior College Athletic Association (NJCAA) Junior Collegiate Champion at Triton College before achieving National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I honors twice at Oklahoma State University–Stillwater. Erikson was the 1997 U.S. National Champion, and a member of the 1997 U.S. Senior Freestyle World Team, placing fourth in the World Championships at 130 kg.
He embarked on his career in MMA in 1996 and went on to fight in the Pride Fighting Championships, being a founding member of the prestigious RAW team.
Erikson was a long time assistant wrestling coach at Purdue University, where he has been coaching since 1997. In 2015 Tom accepted the head wrestling coach position at Lyon College in Batesville, Arkansas. In 2020 he stepped down from his position at Lyon College, to become an assistant coach at Duke University.
Background
Erikson was a graduate of Bloom High School in Chicago Heights, Illinois. Wrestling for Triton College, he was a two-time NJCAA National Champion in 1984 and 1985, winning the Outstanding Wrestler Award at the 1985 tournament. He was also a two-time NCAA Division I Collegiate wrestling All-American, in 1986 and 1987, while competing for Oklahoma State University.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Tom Erikson” is american amateur wrestler, mixed martial artist and kickboxer. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Erikson, American and amateur, not as a finished interpretation.
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The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 24, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7815731. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1964, 1997, 1996 and 2015.
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This entry incorporates text from “Tom Erikson” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.