Heath Sims

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Heath Sims (born October 14, 1971) is an American mixed martial artist, Olympic Greco-Roman wrestler and MMA coach. He has been a longtime training partner of Dan Henderson and is a respected coach who worked as the wrestling instructor for the US team on The Ultimate Fighter: United States vs. United Kingdom. In 2011, he sold his stake in Team Quest and moved to Singapore to become the head of the wrestling program at Evolve MMA.

Sims’ father was a freestyle wrestler who tried out for the 1972 Olympic trials. He started wrestling in the ninth grade with the San Clemente Jets and won state championships in 1988 and 1989. He specialized in Greco-Roman wrestling, becoming a junior national team member in 1989 and a world team member in 1990. He briefly quit wrestling in 1996 to work for a computer company but returned to competition, finishing third at the 1998 U.S. World Team trials. In 1999, he suffered a serious snowboard accident in Colorado that damaged his kidney and spleen, but he recovered and continued competing. Sims was an All-American for Cerritos College in 1998 (1st) and 1999 (2nd).

He earned a spot on the 2000 U.S. Olympic team in Greco-Roman 69 kg and finished 11th overall. In MMA, Sims fought from 2002 to 2006, debuting at Xtreme Pancration 2 in Los Angeles and defeating Steve Bruno by decision. He had 11 MMA fights, with 5 wins (3 by knockout, 1 by submission, 1 by decision), 4 losses (1 by knockout, 1 by submission, 1 by decision) and 2 draws. He fought in Pancrase in Japan against opponents such as Koji Oishi, Antonio McKee, Satoru Kitaoka, Yuki Sasaki and Brad Gumm before retiring to focus on coaching. He has trained many fighters, including Dan Henderson, Matt Lindland, Chael Sonnen, Tarec Saffiedine and Pat Healy, at Team Quest.