Semmy Schilt

Schilt debuted in mixed martial arts for Japanese promotion Pancrase, in which he debuted on May 16, 1996 with an impressive rear naked choke victory over grappler Manabu Yamada.

His second match, happened on July 22, was against rising star Yuki Kondo, whom Schilt would face three more times in his career. In the first of their matches, Kondo showed himself as the better wrestler, but Schilt's size enabled him to power out of his control and win some exchanges. They traded positions until the ring call at 15:00, with Kondo being declared the winner by split decision.

With a short 2–3 record, Schilt was pitted against Pancrase co-founder Masakatsu Funaki on February 22, 1997. After circling around, Funaki scored a takedown, mounted Schilt and worked to an armbar, which Schilt had to spend a rope escape to get out from. Restarted the fight, Schilt reversed a takedown and got his own mount, but Funaki recovered guard and applied a toehold, forcing the karateka to spend another point. The two fighters then passed some minutes clinched on a corner, until Funaki led him to the ground and locked a kneebar from half mount, making Schilt tap out.

On January 16, 1998, he fought the other co-founder of Pancrase, Minoru Suzuki. The Japanese wrestler took Schilt to the mat and kept side control for half of the match, but wasn't able to threaten him from the position aside from scarce armbar attempts, and Schilt eventually capitalized on one of them to escape. The situation repeated itself, but this time Suzuki locked successfully an armbar and Schilt barely reached the ropes to get an escape. Once standing again, however, Schilt went aggressively and landed a clean knee strike to Suzuki's chin, knocking him out for the win.

Schilt got a rematch against Masakatsu Funaki on March 18, 1998, but although he managed to take the bout to the judges, he lost by points due to spent rope escapes.

Months after, on September 14, he had his rubber match against Funaki. This time, the karateka showed himself capable of stopping the wrestler's takedowns, blocking the first of them with the aid of the ropes and a guillotine choke and reversing the second into Funaki's guard. After pressing for some minutes and avoiding a kneebar attempt, Schilt got the fight standing and scored a KO by two clinched knees. Funaki got up and looked to continue the fight, but the Dutch landed another KO, and finally finished him with a combination of knees and palm strikes.

On June 20, 1999, Schilt would fly back to Holland in order to face Gilbert Yvel in an interpromotional match. The bout was particularly intriguing because Yvel belonged to Fighting Network RINGS, Pancrase's rival promotion in Japan. They met under special rules, with Gilbert keeping his gloves for punching while Schilt preferred to go barehanded and use open palm strikes like it was done in Pancrase.

When the match began, Schilt was knocked down by a shocking flurry of hooks from Yvel, but he managed to recover before the eight count. Schilt came back and controlled Gilbert with open palms and knees to the body, but he decided to take the fight to the ground, not wanting to risk another KO from the RINGS muay thai specialist. However, Yvel turned out able to block all of his submission attempts on the mat, in a big part due to the fast stand-ups of the format. At the second round, the RINGS fighter mounted Schilt and illegally eye-gouged him, but it wasn't called by the referee, and Schilt was left with his eye swollen shut. From that point, the two strikers exchanged hits until Yvel overpowered Schilt, landing multiple unanswered punches for the KO stoppage.[11]

Schilt returned for another interpromotional match against RINGS on June 4, 2000, facing Yoshihisa Yamamoto. Schilt won the match in under three minutes after a striking combination.

On November 28, 1999, Schilt won the King of Pancrase openweight championship from Yuki Kondo. He had two successful defenses against Kazuo Takahashi and Osami Shibuya before vacating it due to signing up with UFC.

Schilt made his debut in Ultimate Fighting Championship on May 4, 2001, facing fellow Pancrase alumni Pete Williams in the UFC 31 event. Schilt was taken down and mounted, but he used his height advantage to prevent Williams from applying ground and pound, and once they were back to standing he knocked him out with body kicks and punches.[12]

His second and last appearance in the promotion would be the next event, UFC 32, where Schilt was pitted against Josh Barnett. Schilt was taken down and mounted again, but Barnett was able to land abundant strikes, some of which were answered by Schilt, cutting both of their faces and spilling a large amount of blood on the mat. Eventually, Schilt flipped Barnett over, but Barnett locked an armbar from the guard and made him tap out.[13]

After his UFC tenure, Schilt returned to Japan for PRIDE Fighting Championship, making his debut on September 24, 2001 in PRIDE 16. His opponent was originally Igor Vovchanchyn, but Akira Shoji volunteered to fight him after Vovchanchyn withdrew from the match due to injuries. Shoji took Schilt to the ground, but Schilt reversed him and proceeded to land heavy strikes both on the ground and standing. Schilt finished him with a combination of knee, punch and kick for the KO.[14] Schilt followed with two easy victories over K-1 legend Masaaki Satake and professional wrestler Yoshihiro Takayama, knocking them both out.

On June 23, 2002, Schilt faced Fedor Emelianenko, who was debuting in PRIDE after a solid career in Fighting Network RINGS. Started the match, although Schilt avoided a dangerous armbar attempt, Emelianenko pinned him and scored repeated punches and knees to his face until the end of the round. At the second round, Schilt managed to keep the Russian on his guard and minimize the damage of his ground and pound, but Emelianenko took over again and ended the fight punishing the Ashihara karateka with more punches on the ground. Fedor was declared winner.[15]

Schilt tried to bounce back on November 24, 2002 against Antônio Rodrigo Nogueira. The match was originally a title bout for the PRIDE Heavyweight Champion, but it was changed to a non-title bout due to Schilt's loss to Emelianenko. Capitalizing on his superiority on the ground, the Brazilian pulled guard at several instances and eventually got mount. When Schilt flipped him over, Nogueira feigned an armbar from the guard and then locked a triangle choke, making Schilt tap out in his second loss in PRIDE.[16]

At the end of 2003, he took part in the annual event Inoki Bom-Ba-Ye for a rematch against Josh Barnett. Schilt was defeated again by armbar, this time on the third round.

• Glory
  • Glory Heavyweight Championship (One time; First)
  • Glory 2012 Heavyweight Grand Slam Tournament Champion
• K-1
  • K-1 Super Heavyweight Championship (One time; First; Last)
  • 2009 K-1 World Grand Prix Champion
  • 2007 K-1 World Grand Prix Champion
  • 2006 K-1 World Grand Prix Champion
  • 2005 K-1 World Grand Prix Champion
  • 2005 K-1 World Grand Prix in Paris Champion

• Pancrase
  • Openweight King of Pancrase (One time)
  • Two successful title defenses
• Fight Matrix
  • 1999 Fighter of the Year[25]

• 2 times Daido Juku Hokutoki champion. open-weight division, 1996/1997
• 2 times IBK (International Budo Kai) European Champion Full contact karate (Knockdown karate rules) 1995/1996
• 3 times IBK (International Budo Kai) Dutch Champion Full contact karate (Knockdown karate rules) 1993/1994/1995
• Runner-up Open British Kyokushin Championship 1997
• Black Belt Magazine
  • 2008 Full-Contact Fighter of the Year [26]
• In 2013 Semmy Schilt was officially inducted into the CBME's Dutch National Hall of Fame for the Martial arts.
• Rank
  • 6th dan black belt in Ashihara kaikan
  • Black belt in Kudo Daido-Juku