Luke Zachrich

Luke Zachrich (born December 19, 1981) is a retired American mixed martial artist and professional boxer who formerly competed in the Middleweight division of the Ultimate Fighting Championship A professional mixed martial arts competitor since 2006 until his release from the UFC in 2014, Zachrich was a member of Team Forrest on the seventh season of The Ultimate Fighter, and has also fought for King of the Cage, Bellator, Xtreme Fighting Organization, and Ultimate Victory Challenge, the latter of which he was the inaugural Middleweight Champion.

In the first few years of his career, he trained with professional wrestling and mixed martial arts legend Dan Severn at The Beast Academy in Coldwater, Michigan, before relocating to Team Jorge Gurgel in Cincinnati, Ohio.

He now fights out his own training facility, the Ronin Training Center, where he is also one of the head instructors.

During his professional career, he held a martial arts record of 14–4, with seven of his fourteen wins coming by way of submission.

Zachrich is currently ineligible for the Tapology.com Middleweight rankings due to his retirement from mixed martial arts.

Zachrich was born on October 1, 1981, in Defiance, Ohio.

During his first year, Zachrich was a varsity football player at Bowling Green University in Bowling Green, Ohio.

After sustaining an injury in one of the last scheduled games of the season, he chose to discontinue his upstart career in football and find a different profession.

In the last couple of years in college, Zachrich was a part-time lacrosse player and then graduated with bachelor's degree in 2005.

Around the same time, he stumbled upon mixed martial arts and began training with UFC legend and Hall of Famer Dan Severn at his gym, The Beast Academy, in Coldwater, Michigan and also trained with renowned Jujitsu practitioner Dave Morris.

An upstart, Zachrich trained for two years under the tutelage of Severn and Jorge Gurgel's team, before accepting a last-minute offer to compete in an amateur bout in early 2006.

During an interview with MMA.TV, he was asked about how he made the transition to mixed martial arts.

Honestly, it was by chance.

I had a short stint in college football and when that was over I really felt something missing in my life.

Being a competitor was all I had ever known.

So I started driving from Bowling Green to Toledo and started boxing.

I continued that through the last couple years of college.

Then, it just seemed like I kept meeting people and training with them that were involved in different aspects of MMA.

Even though I had no intentions or aspirations of ever fighting.

Then one day, I met an MMA guy when I moved back to Defiance, Ohio, [and] started training with him for fun and after a few months, someone needed a last minute fill in and I said yes.

I won that fight pretty easily but I still didn't really see myself as a fighter.

After that first fight, I just kept getting more offers and kept winning.

In the first combat bout of his career, Zachrich faced off against fellow fighting newcomer Ben Kelley at Mega Fighting Championship's premiere event on January 14, 2006.

It was a showcase of heavy stand-up striking for a majority of the bout, with Zachrich coming out on top with a first round technical knockout victory.

Following more training, Zachrich would receive the opportunity to turn pro three months later.

On April 15, 2006, he made a successful transition to professional mixed martial arts, as he submitted Cliff Perillo with strikes at the Ultimate Fight Series.

At 1–0, Zachrich continued his slow-and-steady climb up the divisional rankings, and would collect another victory on May 6, 2006, in the form of a thirty-one second TKO of Micah Bender in the preliminary portion of FightFest 3.

On September 29, 2006, Zachrich fought Jason Zazelenchuk at King of the Cage: Detonator, winning the fight by a quick rear-naked choke in the first round.

After compiling a 1–1 record in regional promotions, getting the first loss of his career against Danny Ruiz by armbar, and rebounding by submitting Shane Krutchten with an armbar, he returned to the promotion and submitted Brad Burrick, also by an armbar, at King of the Cage: Explosion on June 15, 2007.

After capturing Xtreme Fighting Organization's middleweight championship with a vicious first-round knockout of mixed martial arts journeyman William 'Bill' Hill, the UFC announced that Zachrich would be one of the sixteen Middleweight competitors set to take part in the seventh season of their hit reality show, The Ultimate Fighter, hosted by coaches Quinton Jackson and Forrest Griffin.

Zachrich took on Patrick Schultz in the preliminary round, taking Schultz out with a quick first round rear-naked choke.

Impressing the two coaches, he was the final pick by Forrest Griffin of Team Griffin.

In the quarter-finals, Zachrich faced off against Team Rampage's Dan "Cosmo" Cramer.

Despite having the considerable edge in overall experience, he was defeated with a second-round TKO and was eliminated from the show.

Zachrich returned to the regional circuit soon after his Ultimate Fighter elimination, and his next fight was quickly put in place for the Full Contact Fight Series 28 event on September 6, 2008, where he took on regional journeyman Michael Musslewhite.

In this contest, he continued to showcase his ever-improving boxing skills, taking Musslewhite out with a first-round knockout and moving himself to 8–1 in his growing career.

For his tenth career fight, he took on Robert Thompson at ICF: Breakout on April 11, 2009.

Thompson, who came into the fight with a three-fight losing streak hanging over his head, would not fare well against Zachrich, and would be submitted with a keylock in the third round.

He faced J.R. Hines at ICF: Sacrifice on May 16, 2009.

Zachrich took the fight to the ground early on and submitted Hines with a keylock in the first round, and with the victory, garnered the attention of Indiana based organization, MMA Big Show, who announced that they had signed him to a multi-fight deal on October 21, 2009.