Hume grew up in Kirkland, Washington. His father was a Seattle police officer and his mother was a housewife and later a nurse.[8] His father had trained under Bruce Lee and began Matt's judo and boxing training at age four.[9] Hume began folkstyle wrestling in elementary school and started coaching after graduating from Lake Washington High School.[1] He coached Josh Barnett during Barnett's time in high school, which eventually led to Barnett's MMA career.[10] Hume attended Highline College for one year and finished his degree at Central Washington University. He credited his Highline wrestling coach Ron Wallick as being a major influence. While attending CWU in 1988, Hume started a pankration club, inviting all wrestlers, boxers, and other martial artists to train. He originally learned about pankration as a child while attending wrestling camps hosted by Athletes in Action.[1][9] This encouraged him to train and compete in wrestling, boxing, kickboxing, Thai boxing, and karate.[1] After graduating, Hume worked in finance while training with Haru Shimanishi and Maurice Smith. Shimanishi had already established AMC (American Martial Arts Centre) Kickboxing, and partnered with Hume to co-found AMC Pankration. His relationship with Smith brought interest from Japanese reporters and Pancrase, who recruited Hume and many other AMC fighters.[1]
Mixed martial arts career
Hume's competitive MMA career started in the shootfighting organization Pancrase, debuting at Pancrash 3! against Katsuomi Inagaki, losing by points.[11] He won his second fight against veteran and future UFC fighter Scott Bessac via rear naked choke, but lost his next 3 fights against Ken Shamrock, Manabu Yamada, and Jason Delucia.[11][12][13] Hume rebounded by submitting Scott Sollivan with an armbar in under a minute, but lost against Minoru Suzuki by points in his final Pancrase fight.[13] He later cited Shamrock, Suzuki, and Masakatsu Funaki as influences on his career.[8]
After Pancrase, Hume fought in Extreme Fighting, defeating Shooto champion Erik Paulson and former UFC Welterweight Champion Pat Miletich. His last fight was at Absolute FC, where he submitted Shawn Peters in under two minutes.
Since retiring from active competition, Hume has remained active as the head coach at AMC, working with a range of students from world champions to hobbyist adults and children.[14]
In 1993, Hume founded United Full Contact Federation in order to sanction amateur pankration events.[1] UFCF was instrumental in legalizing MMA in Washington state. After conflicts with the state's boxing commission, the boxing commission was dissolved and UFCF worked with the Department of Licensing to sanction, codify, and legislate the sport.[1][8] UFCF would also hold professional events from 1995 to 2007, several of them at the AMC gym.[18]
Hume was initially appointed as the head official by Singapore-based promotion ONE Championship when it was founded in 2011. The following year he accepted a new role as Vice President of Operations.[19][20][21][22][23]
^"Archived copy". sportsillustrated.cnn.com. Archived from the original on June 3, 2014. Retrieved February 2, 2022.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
