This past weekend at the UFC Fan Expo, Joe Warren told Purefight.org that he was planning on returning to wrestling for the 2012 Olympics.
Warren recently made the conversion to MMA after being suspended from wrestling for a failed drug test. Since making the switch, the results have been surprisingly amazing – to everyone except Warren. In his first fight he defeated former WEC Bantamweight champion Chase Beebe, and then followed that up with an improbable upset of Japanese icon Norifumi “Kid” Yamamoto.
Not since the early MMA careers of Dan Henderson and Matt Lindland has an American athlete tried to balance MMA and international level wrestling. It will be interesting to see if his Olympic run will bring more fan attention to the normally half empty wrestling stands.
Prior to his suspension, Joe Warren was one of the United States’ most accomplished Greco-Roman wrestlers, with gold medal performances in the 2006 Pan American games, 2006 World Champions, and 2007 World Cup.