David Taylor has accomplished just about everything he can on the mats.
The Magic Man won the gold medal in the 2020 Olympics at 86 kg. He’s a two-time NCAA Champion and four-time Big Ten champ, and has won three world titles as well.
So as the 33-year-old approaches the 2024 Olympics, the one-time Penn State great has his eyes at least darting to another corner of the combat sports sphere: MMA.
Talking to MMAFighting, Taylor admitted that he has considered following in the footsteps of other Penn State wrestlers-turned-fighters like Bo Nickal, Phil Davis and Pat Cummins and beginning a transition to mixed martial arts training.
“That door’s not closed,” Taylor told MMAFighting. “I’m interested in it. Right now, my focus is being an Olympic champion. If that happens, it’s time re-evaluate and see what’s next. MMA is something that’s very interesting to me. A lot of wrestlers talk about it because they want the hype or whatever it may be, but I’ve put some time into training this past year.
“I went out to Factory X with coach Marc Montoya and I really enjoyed it. I liked the elements of what my folkstyle wrestling and my mat wrestling brings to MMA. I believe it’s something that could translate well. It’s not something you can talk about because there’s killers in that arena. Just because what I’ve done in wrestling, it’s not going to instantly translate. But if I have that fire to transition and do it, I believe I can be successful. That door is open. I think about it probably every single day.”
Taylor, who has teased the move before in 2022, is currently focused on the Olympic Trials in State College, but even acknowledging the potential move is major news, as Taylor would join Henry Cejudo, Kevin Jackson and Mark Shultz as three of the only Olympic gold medalist wrestlers to compete in MMA.
With the success Nickal, a friend of Taylor’s, has had in the UFC—he just picked up his sixth win of his career at UFC 300, a finish of Cody Brundage—and the fact that Nickal is starting up a major MMA camp in State College, there is plenty of motivation and resource for Taylor to make the move.
-- Follow Dan Sostek on Twitter @dan_sostek