Dan Severn

Daniel Severn (nickname "The Beast") was born on June 8, 1958 in Coldwater, Michigan. He is an American mixed martial artist and professional wrestler, and earned success in the initial years of Ultimate Fighting Championship tournaments. Severn has also contested various other mixed martial arts promotions including King of the Cage, PRIDE, Gladiator Challenge and Cage Rage.

Severn has been a long-time champion of Greco-Roman and freestyle wrestling. He won All-American at Arizona State 4 times, was the former Sunkist Kid of the Sunkist Kids. He was a wrestling coach in his alma mater Arizona State as well as Michigan State. He has competed in contests held in Turkey, Japan, Cuba, Hungary, Canada, France and USA. In his long career, he has won various national and international titles; he was featured in the UFC Octagon as holding over 95 from total. He also held the US national record for pin victories from 1976-1992, a total of 112 in all.

Severn was the first world-class wrestler to participate in the UFC, indicating the era of prominence of wrestlers like Don Frye in UFC 8 and 9 and Mark Coleman in UFC 10 and 11. He  constested the UFC in 1995 at UFC 4: Revenge of the Warriors, in which he won  over many UFC fans by performing 2 impressive back suplexes on Anthony Macias. He lost the finals of UFC 4 to Royce Gracie who executed a triangle choke for the victory.

But not the one to take it lying down, he soon roared back into mixed martial arts competition leading his opponents to win the UFC 5: Return of the Beast tournament. Severn continued to win Ultimate Ultimate '95, a tournament featuring UFC champions and runners up. Here he beat Paul Varelans, David "Tank" Abbott and Oleg Taktarov in one night. He also beat Ken Shamrock at UFC 9 to win the UFC Superfight Champion,  to win his 3rd title for the promotion.

Severn supervised his friend and fellow UFC champion Don Frye at the time of UFC 8, and then went on to train leading female mixed martial artist Becky Levi. His first and only fight in PRIDE in 1997, ended in a draw against Kimo. After that he has participated in various MMA promotions like King of the Cage, the UFC, Ultimate Combat and Gladiator Challenge etc. He partnered with Levi in 1999, to start a new mixed martial arts promotion, known as The Danger Zone, aimed to give a platform for amateur fighters.

Severn is an expert professional wrestler, and has worked for UWF International in Japan, the National Wrestling Alliance and the World Wrestling Federation. He participated in the NWA in 1995, and beat Chris Candido to win his first NWA World Heavyweight Championship on a Smokey Mountain Wrestling card. In the same year, he won the UFC championship, thus becoming the first and sole person to hold the NWA and UFC championships at the same time. In the short time, he was in the WWF, he participated in the Brawl For All tournament, defeating The Godfather in the initial round. But he withdrew before quarterfinals, thus giving chance to The Godfather to advance. In 2000, he competed in the WXO promotion.

It was only in 2001, that he won the professional wrestling gold, by winning the NWA championship, from Shinya Hashimoto. Today, Severn is the president of Price of Glory (POG) Wrestling, held at his training facility in Coldwater, Michigan. Besides he is writing for Fighting Spirit magazine and publishes e-newletters on his site.