Rico Chiapparelli

Rico Chiapparelli (Baltimore, Maryland) is an American former amateur wrestler and mixed martial arts trainer. Known as the "Baltimore Butcher," he was Junior National champion as a senior in high school, he then was a standout wrestler for the University of Iowa, where he was an NCAA national champion in 1987 at 177 lbs. After college, he went on to win a USA senior freestyle championship in 1989 at 180.5 lbs.

He would make himself famous in MMA by founding the team Real American Wrestling. Currently, Chiapparelli is a mixed martial arts, submission wrestling, and wrestling instructor.

Having trained Brazilian jiu-jitsu under Renzo Gracie, Chiapparelli got into MMA when he was asked by his friend and wrestling colleague Tom Erikson to corner him in his debut for the 1996's MARS tournament. Though his participation on the event costed him his relationship with Gracie, after learning of the business and the value of wrestling in the sport, Chiapparelli formed the team RAW or Real American Wrestling. It was soon joined by Erikson, Dan Henderson, Randy Couture, Frank Trigg and Vladimir Matyushenko, among others.

Chiapparelli had his first and only MMA match on September 13, 2003, beating Luiz Pantera in the Jungle Fight promotion in Brazil.

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