Matmen began as a Mississauga Club in the early 80’s established as the “Erindale Wrestling Club”. The founders were Joseph Mrkoci, Walt Okiro, and Ed Falcioni.
OUR HISTORY
WE FOSTER
SELF CONFIDENCE
DETERMINATION
SPORTMANSHIP
HARDWORK
FUN
COMMITMENT
OUR CLUB
​Matmen Amateur Wrestling Club is a community-based, not-for-profit organization sanctioned under the Ontario Amateur Wrestling Association with a mandate to provide amateur athletes of all ages, gender, and experience the opportunity to learn, participate, and compete in the unique sport of Freestyle and Greco-Roman Wrestling.
OUR MISSION
The Matmen Amateur Wrestling Club is committed to fostering the growth and development of amateur wrestling in a positive, safe, and supportive environment. We focus on more than just wrestling skills; we nurture the physical, mental, and emotional well-being of our athletes. Our experienced coaches mentor wrestlers of all ages and skill levels, promoting values like discipline, teamwork, and respect. At Matmen, we create a community where every athlete feels valued, empowered, and inspired to reach their full potential.
We strive to instill the values of hard work, respect for oneself and others, commitment, determination, and positive attitude. We believe these are the ingredients for building successful athletes and individuals of strong character and integrity.
OUR VISION
We focus on the development of wrestling fundamentals and the unique skills of each athlete allowing them to better achieve their full potential. We provide a supportive “team” environment where athletes of all ages, gender, and experience can thrive and propel one another to greater success. It is through the sport of wrestling that we aim to build character and integrity in each athlete. We ensure that athletes take the values they learn on the mat and apply them to school, relationships, and all the challenges they will face in life now and in the future.
THE STORY OF MATMEN WRESTLING CLUB
Matmen began as a Mississauga Club in the early 80’s established as the “Erindale Wrestling Club”. The founders were Joseph Mrkoci, Walt Okiro, and Ed Falcioni. This was the first club in the area and trained 2 evenings a week out of the local high school, Erindale. Falcioni did the majority of the coaching while Okihiro acted as the administrator of the early club. Assisting Falcioni in the coaching duties was Kevin Lomas (a former Erindale Wrestler), Peter Kobayashi, and Paul Espey (both products of Riverdale Wrestling Club in Montreal). While initially, it was mainly Erindale S. S. wrestlers “training at night,’ it wasn’t long until wrestlers from the surrounding Mississauga schools began attending practices. As the word spread, wrestlers from Oakville and Brampton began attending.
In 1986, the late Ron Sauder (counselor at Erindale S. S., Father of Erindale wrestler David Sauder and member of the Erindale Wrestling Club ‘board of directors’) became involved with the start up of Bingo City in Mississauga. In an attempt to secure a bingo license for the Wrestling Club (so Bingo City could be used as a means of fundraising), Sauder insisted that the club name be changed. The Erindale Wrestling Club legally became Mississauga Amateur Wrestling Club and would be known in the wrestling community as the Mississauga Matmen.
In 1991 Falcioni left Erindale S.S. to teach at Brampton Centennial S.S., which became the new location of the Mississauga Amateur Wrestling Club/Mississauga Matmen. The ‘Mississauga’ was ‘unofficially’ dropped from the club name and the club became known as the Matmen Wrestling Club.
Soon after, Falcioni stepped down as Head Coach (concentrating his efforts with the Brampton Centennial S.S. team) and Kevin Lomas became Head Coach.
In 1995, Kevin Lomas left for a coaching position in New Zealand and Chris Kelman took over as Head Coach. When Kevin returned in 1997, Kevin and Chris co-Coached for a short while; then Coach Kelman ventured out to form RAW (Real Amateur Wrestling).
Kevin continued to coach and develop athletes from Mississauga and Brampton, producing numerous provincial and national champions. Joining the coaching team at this point were Richard Knill (Bramalea S.S. Coach) and Greg Cappuccitti (Former Matmen/Erindaly Athlete). In 2004, Kevin Lomas accepted a coaching position with the Edmonton Wrestling Club passing on Head Coaching duties to Greg Cappuccitti.
After taking over, Greg Cappuccitti reestablshed the clubs Mississauga roots by opening up a private state of the art training centre in central Mississauga. This new facility and ideal location quickly drew top regional wrestlers seeking “year around” training. It was at this facility that Mirek Kedzierski (Polish National Champion) joined the coaching staff and helping to establish the areas first kids wrestling program to be known as the “Matrats” program. New coaches and a new central facility helped Matmen grow into an elite club on the Provincial, National, and International stages.
In 2005 Mr. Richard Remillard, a long time veteran of the sport and Dr. Ivan Jagas established a “satellite” club in the Waterloo region. The combined coaching staff and additional training partners for athletes would quickly pay dividends. With each season of competition the Waterloo regional chapter continued to increase in numbers and accomplishments.
In 2009 the combined Matmen Club held all the boy’s national championship titles from ages 9 to 18, an accomplishment no other club has achieved in the history of Canadian amateur wrestling.
The Matmen Wrestling Club continues to be one of the top clubs in the province and the country. We have had multiple provincial and national men’s and women’s champions as well as Pan-American champions and medalists. Our athletes are highly sought after by university programs and many of them have received scholarships to continue wrestling for their chosen educational institutes.
The club’s current coaching staff includes many fully accredited coaches with a number of new and developing assistant coaches. All of our coaches are NCCP trained and many were highly accomplished wrestlers at many levels. They have been Ontario High School (OFSAA), Provincial, and National Champions as well as international competition medalists. Between all of our coaches there is more than a century of “on the mat experience”. The coaches are all volunteers and are involved because of their love of the sport and their commitment to their community by passing on the values and skills they have received from the sport of wrestling.
