Having just finished a round against a more experienced opponent, Jomal Rodriguez took to his corner of the cage. He had worked up a sweat, and his ears were beginning to hurt, but that wasn’t important.
What was important, in that moment, was that he was no longer nervous. The grappler knew exactly what he had to do to make Saturday, March 19, a night to remember.
“I felt confident,” Rodriguez says. “I had my entire team there, supporting me. I was like, ‘I think I can do this.’”
The second round began.
Rodriguez waited for an opening and, as soon as he saw it, pounced for the takedown on opponent Christopher Lavant. He grabbed Lavant’s arm, breaking it free of Lavant’s control, and pulled it back hard.
The next thing Rodriguez knew, his arm was grabbed — by the referee — and raised in the air.
Winner by submission.
Rodriguez had just won his debut mixed-martial arts match at Rival Fight League in Lakeland. It’s a feeling that he can’t get enough of, and he’s dead set on keeping it going into the next level.
“I want to go pro,” Rodriguez says.
FINDING HIMSELF
That was a night that Rodriguez had been waiting a long time for.
Of the many things his native Puerto Rico is known for, producing world-class fighters is at or near the top of the list. These men are, in no uncertain terms, icons of the island in the same way football stars in the southern United States are.
Miguel Cotto. Félix “Tito” Trinidad. Héctor “Macho” Camacho. Puerto Rican men like these are and were legends of the sport of boxing, and Rodriguez got hooked at an early age by watching matches with his father.
Although Rodriguez would end up in a different combat sport, he knew he wanted to train like these men as soon as he was able to.
Rodriguez came to Florida as an eighth-grader, and it wasn’t long before he started training in boxing. His broad shoulders and long reach, coupled with his determination, helped him get a handle on the sport he didn’t want to let go of.
Although he didn’t have a sanctioned fight at the amateur level, Rodriguez trained and sparred whenever he wasn’t in school at Strawberry Crest High.
He knew that there was something there, but there was one problem: his conditioning wasn’t good enough for him to be able to go the distance. He played basketball and other sports to build his stamina but eventually wanted to go back to a combat sport.
Rather than stick with his boxing training, Rodriguez opted to try something new in his senior year.
He ended up on the wrestling team, competing at the 160-pound weight class and placed second at districts. Rodriguez says this experience was valuable, not only because he got along well with the team, but also because training under head coach C.J. Gittens helped him get his conditioning to where he wanted it to be.
“I had a good feeling,” Rodriguez says. “Everybody was supportive. I always knew that, if I wanted to go back to a combat sport, I wanted to find a team like that.”
It was also a turning point for Rodriguez: he became open to the prospect of trying MMA, which, in a way, could satisfy both his boxing and grappling desires at the same time.
Rodriguez graduated from Strawberry Crest in 2015 and had to choose between going to college or pursuing his newfound dream of becoming an MMA fighter.
GOING FOR IT
Needless to say, Rodriguez isn’t spending his nights studying for exams.
With encouragement from his father, Rodriguez opted to try and break into the MMA scene now, while he’s young and physically able. To support himself and save up money, he works with lumber by day and trains at Champions MMA by night.
Rodriguez splits time between Champions’ two schools in Plant City and Lakeland. He trains under Ross Kellin, who founded the school in 2007 with his wife, Kristin. Ross Kellin has been teaching Brazilian jiu-jitsu, in which he is a black belt, to Rodriguez for several months. He and fighters Curtis Vert, Ruben Lopez and Tucker Chapman were in Rodriguez’s corner for the fight.
“I just love the atmosphere there, in the gym,” Rodriguez says. “Everybody’s cool and nice. We have good fighters there.”
While Brazilian jiu-jitsu is not the easiest discipline to pick up on the fly, Rodriguez’s wrestling experience has made it easier. And, although he’s currently a white belt, he’s picked up enough knowledge to use it in a proper cage fight.
“He always shows up,” Ross Kellin says. “He’s always in class. He trains a lot and does what you tell him to do, and he doesn’t wait to do it. He puts as much effort into his mat time as possible.”
That knowledge was what helped him beat Lavant at Rival Fight League.
Rodriguez says that, after
getting a feel for his opponent, he felt good enough about his
grasp of Brazilian jiu-jitsu to try and win with it.
“He did everything we told him to do,” Ross Kellin says. “Dominated the first round, then made some adjustments. I told him what to do in the second round, he came out and did exactly that.”
Contact Justin Kline at jkline@plantcityobserver.com.