Shorty Rock
black belt
I’ve been training jiu-jitsu for about 18 years now. I wrestled in high school, and New Jersey—especially North Jersey—has a strong wrestling culture. I was a good wrestler, but I never took it seriously. I only wrestled during the season. Outside the season, I was just a kid, playing football with friends. My dad wrestled in school but dropped out, so he pushed my brother and me into wrestling. I happened to be good at it; my brother wasn’t. You tend to like things you’re good at, but eventually I felt like I was wrestling for my father, not for myself. I quit in 8th grade and played basketball out of spite.
I always watched the UFC, because wrestling naturally draws you toward other grappling sports. When the UFC first emerged, we were around seven or eight years old, having people over to watch it. Nobody knew what was going on, but the wrestlers understood more than most.
I came back for my freshman year, but by then, the kids I grew up with were already training all season. I wrestled some of the same kids when we were little, and it was clear how much they had improved. A couple of them went to win States. I moved on.
I spent some time in Florida, then came back to New Jersey in 2007 after breaking my arm in a motorcycle accident. When I got home, a buddy from wrestling was doing jiu-jitsu with all the high-level wrestlers I idolized in high school. He said, “Dude, there’s this little Brazilian guy, 130 pounds, smashing all of them.” That blew my mind. His name was André Soares, nicknamed Gigueto. He fought at Roosterweight, medaled in the Mundials, and spoke almost no English. I kept putting off visiting, but eventually went.
Q: What was your first day like?
I broke my arm. Not by Gigueto—by another kid I used to wrestle with. First class ever. My brother had actually gotten into jiu-jitsu before me and used me as his grappling dummy—he had Eddie Bravo’s Jiu-Jitsu Unleashed and was practicing lockdown and half-guard stuff on me. But I didn’t actually know jiu-jitsu yet. So, in my first real class, I get hit with an omoplata, and I instinctively roll out. I then go right into an armbar, and my arm snaps. I was in a sling for about five months.
Q: That would make most people quit. What made you come back?
Honestly, I didn’t go back right away. I did a grappling tournament, Grappler’s Quest, utilizing my wrestling skills from a decade prior. I won my first match, then lost to a kid named Mark Ramos. He asked how long I’d been training and told me I had great instincts. That loss pissed me off. I hate losing. So I decided to learn jiu-jitsu.
I started at Evolutionary Martial Arts in Hackettstown, where Gigueto was teaching. It didn’t last long. I had issues with the owner, who was a total asshole, and Gigueto eventually had to return to Brazil due to visa issues. After the fallout, a group of us ended up training informally together, forming a sort of fight club within a wrestling academy.
One guy hyped me up to take an MMA fight. I had no business being in the cage. I won the first round, gassed out completely, and lost by decision. That loss motivated me to take training seriously and find a reputable gym.
AMA was filled with the best wrestlers in New Jersey. I tried a class, loved it, and signed up for it. It was $200/month, and I had no job, so the owner, Mike Constantino, let me work off the membership by cleaning mats and helping with cardio kickboxing classes. I got my blue belt in about two weeks at AMA. The room was so high-level—Jim Miller, Dan Miller, Tim Troxell, tons of killers. Rolling with guys like that every day accelerated everything. I’ve never been naturally gifted at anything in my life—except jiu-jitsu. It just clicked.
I trained all day, every day. I made my amateur debut, won, then went on a four-fight win streak. Made my pro debut the following year. Lost that one, but came back and eventually armbarred the same kid I had lost to as an amateur.
My professor, Jamie Cruz, is a Renzo black belt—one of the earlier American black belts under Renzo. AMA originally brought Jamie in to teach jiu-jitsu. Years later, during COVID, I got close to Renzo because my best friend is his attorney. We’d go out to eat all the time. Renzo told me to go meet Luca at the Upper West Side academy to see if I’d be a good fit. I was initially trying to get the Wall Street teaching job, but delays with the HVAC system and senior instructors meant I had to take another opportunity at Union Square to make money—by then, I had been jobless for nearly a year. Eventually, Renzo’s daughter, Cora, spoke to Luca, and he brought me here.
Q: Last question—how many MMA fights have you had?
Forty total. Thirty-five pro, five amateur.
Q: And you’re 41 now?
Yeah. There aren’t many fighters still competing past 40, especially not at lighter weight classes. Most retire by 35. I just kept going.
This is part of a weekly series on the people who make up jiu-jitsu culture.
