Austin O'Connor reveals future in coaching, MMA after second national title for North Carolina

Austin O’Connor has a great future after he overcame a lot to win his second national title for North Carolina wrestling. After going through two surgeries after 2022, O’Connor finished 2023 undefeated but that’ll be it for wrestling.

The Tar Heels five-time All-American O’Connor sees coaching and MMA in his future. But, it’ll take a year before you see O’Connor go pro in mixed martial arts.

In an exclusive conversation with On3, O’Connor opened up about plans to coach and transition into MMA.

“I plan on getting a coaching position at North Carolina or something that I could stick around and help out,” O’Connor said. “But I want to just save up a little bit of money. And while I do that, I want to start training these other martial arts because I want to go into MMA. So I think kind of like a gap year of just being able to still train, get a like a secure job to save up a little bit money so that when I go into fighting, I kind of already have that background because I’ve been training for a full year while coaching and then just. I mean, fighting is a tough sport too. So I mean, if it don’t turn out at least I have a little safety net, you know?”

O’Connor detailed his future to On3 and said he’d look at potential amateur fights in the summer, but that’s to-be-determined.

In 2022, the Tar Heels star dealt with an ACL injury and only finished eighth at 157 pounds. The fact that he got to the podium was a victory in itself.

But that left him hungry for more in college wrestling. Originally, O’Connor didn’t want to use his extra year of eligibility from the COVID-19 waiver. But since he didn’t go out with a second national title, he came back for 2023 to go out on top.

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“Yeah, it was a long journey,” O’Connor said. “I mean, started as soon as the last season ended. I knew that I took eighth place. And I knew I wanted to be back at the top of the podium and I was willing to do anything to get there. So I had surgery about a week and a half after the season. Just started grinding on my rehab and training every day so I can get back to the top.”