Fighter Card

Dustin Winterhalt of Cincinnati, Ohio, is one of the top emerging fighters with an outstanding wrestling and striking background. He holds a professional mixed martial arts record of 8-0 and an impressive amateur record of 8-2. Winterhalt is from a harbor city in the Syracuse New York area. Since he could remember he has dreamed of becoming a professional athlete. He started wrestling at the age of five, following in his older brother and father’s foot steps. His father ran the city youth wrestling program, and was an amateur boxer in his adolescent years. Winterhalt was lucky to have an uncle that was a professional boxer in the 1950’s. Taking advantage of such talent, he started with learning the fundamentals of boxing at a very young age. Winterhalt seemed to be raised by the right “mix” of athletes for his unknown future in MMA. At the age of eight, he started studying Tae Kwon Do under his grandfather. His grandfather was a third degree black belt in the martial art and continued to teach his grandson for three years while running his busy martial arts school. Now with the knowledge of boxing and Tae Kwon Do under his belt, Winterhalt continued with his wrestling career, qualifying for the N.Y.S sec.3 wrestling tournament his sophomore year of high school with a record of 29-4. In his junior year he broke all the high school records that were formally held by his older brother, finishing with a record of 30-3. In his senior year, he re-broke all the school records placing 3rd in the N.Y.S sec.3 wrestling tournament with two broken ribs and finishing with a 36-2 record. During Winterhalt’s wrestling career he was able practice wrestling under Oswego State wrestling coach, Mike Howard. He had the honor to also work with Hall of Fame coach, Elmer Ackley. Gene Mills, a three time world cup champion, 1980 U.S. Olympian and voted the "Athlete of the Year" by the U.S. Olympic Committee, was a great inspiration to his wrestling career as well as, World Cup Champion, World Grand Prix Champion, and Pan-American Games Champion, Rob Koll. At age 22, Winterhalt moved to Cincinnati, Ohio and was able to put all his skills together when he met UFC fighter, Josh Rafferty, at Neal Rowe’s Sacan Martial Arts. It was there where he met professional MMA fighter, Rod Housley, who took a great interest in him. Since then, Winterhalt has been training full time under Housley and has never looked back.