Famous fighters you have met or trained with

[SweepEm]

Trained with:
(in no particular order)
BJJ BB=black belt
Rey Diogo BB
Hura Purple
Marcus Vinicius BB
Marc Laimon, Brown
Ethan Milius, Brown
Royce Gracie BB
Rorion Gracie BB
Rolker Gracie BB
Helio Gracie Grand Master
Royler Gracie BB
Gustavo Moreira BB
Fabiano Iha BB
Chris Brenan BB
Fabio Santos BB
Caique BB
Sam Rand (HA!)
Lonnie (don't know his last name) brown with Machados
Andreh Vasconsuelos BB
Richard Bressler BB
Lowell Anderson BB
Carlson Jr. BB
Luis Herederia BB
Dartanian Bagby BB
Barret Yoshida BB

Marco Ruas BB
Bas Rutten BB
Andreh Anderson ADCC

People I've met:
I know I can't remember them all, but
Carlson Sr.
Gene LeBelle
Oleg
Pedro Rizzo
Sakuraba
Takada
Carlos Newton
Cafe Dantas
Leka BB
Chuck Norris
Bruce Lee's brother, (can't remember his name, many yrs ago)
Todd Medina
Vitor Belfort BB
Wallid Ismael BB
Rickson Gracie BB
Joe Moreira BB
Claudio Franca BB
John Lewis BB
John Ouano brown
Howard Liu brown
Allan Goes BB
Craig Kukok BB
Joe Charles
Cleber Luciano BB
Steve Silva BB

Damn, I know there are more, but can't think of them at the moment, looking my list, it's a lot of people but I know others would have much more.

[Ryu (non-working password]

Sure looks like a lot to me!
Was it Robert Lee by any chance?

Hey what is Kaz like? As funny as they say?

Ryu

[Jaguar Wong]

I haven't trained with anyone famous, but here's my list anyways.

John Lewis: My bro and I work for the company that designed his site (my bro actually did the design, HTML, and grunt work on it). He comes in every once and a while and chats with us. Really nice guy.

Right now we train with one of his blue belts (cause it's free ). He's asked us to train with him (probably cause he knows I suck and need all the mat time I can get), but I can't afford his classes right now (got a little 'un on the way and all )

Here's the list of people I've met:

Don "The Dragon" Wilson
Michelle "Mouse" Krasnoo (real snooty in person)
Ernie Reyes Jr.
Gene Lebell (got a pic of him chokin' my bro)
Benny "the Jet" Urquidez
Bill "Superfoot" Wallace
Peter "Sugarfoot" Cuningham


There's also a whole list of b-movie stars that no one has probably even heard of (like Cynthia Rothrock, James Lew, Al Leong, etc), so I won't name them all here. The list is too long, and means about as much as a forms competition trophy

[rockinronnie]

SweepEm - that's some IMPRESSIVE list my son!!

Being Canadian, my exposure to top BJJers is very limited. Come to think of it, my exposure to any of the people mentioned is nil, or next to it.

Let me think....

I'm going to include just anybody famous, as opposed to famous NHB people. This will help to make my list look less bleek.
I've met;
Franco Colombu - Famous body builder from the '70's and 80's (and actor)
Lou Ferrigo (twice)
Shawn O'Sullivan - ex-boxer from Toronto (silver medalist '88 Olympics)
Carlos Newton - I've got an interview with him and I on tape
Professor Marcio "Saddam" Carnaro - BB under Carlson Gracie Jr
Professor Pedro Sauer - BB under Rickson Gracie
Donny Lalonde - ex world champion boxer from Winnipeg
Mark LaDuc - ex pro boxer (silver medalist from '92 "O")
Billy "the kid" Irwin - pro boxer from Niagara Falls, scheduled in Dec to fight Paul Spadafora for the title.

Trained with / sparred with / rolled with;

Marc LeDuc
John "the beast" Loginow
Joao "the boa" Freitas
Bobby "the shootmaster" Smith
Anakin "the manikin" Afhryrrututusingh


The last four are really not famous, but I had to make it look good. There SweepEm, how's that my friend? Give me 10 years bud, and maybe I'll be able to compete here.

Ronnie.

________________________________
A straight arm's still a broken arm - Master JPF

[SweepEm]

I've been lucky to hook up with the right people, in some instances to have trained with so many black belts in BJJ.

As you can see, there isn't a Machado on my list, yet I do respect all of the brothers. I would like to train with them because of the great testimonies I have heard about their skills. I have friends that train with them and they are always trying to get me to come train with them, but I am very please with where I am.
It may seem like I am a creonte, but I've only trained at 3 schools and went to have some semi-privates with some friends.

Until I found this forum and started to read all the people around the country and even in foreign countries, I didn't realize that I could just go down the street and take my pick of so many different BJJ instructors, from the ultra famous, to the not so famous.

But, with all these great instructors, am I great at BJJ?
No, but I keep trying to get better. I think if I dedicated myself to better conditioning and was half my age, then I think I would be a good to great BJJ martial artist. But at least I go out, train and keep in shape. Like I've said before, dudes my age think that they get a lot of exercise by playing GOLF. My friends have tried to get me to play and I even have several hundreds of dollars in golf lessons waiting for me. I guess when I can't put on a Gi anymore I may have to learn to play a stupid game of chasing a small white ball, and sink it in a hole in the ground. But if you could play golf in a few hours, I might look at it more, but when it takes 5-8 hours to play a round, forget it for me.

[andreh anderson]

LOL! I dont belong on these lists.

[rockinronnie]

A few others that I missed....that I've only met...

for any of the Canadians on the forum, you may recognize these names....

Tony "kid" Morrison - ex heavyweight Canadian boxing Champ, fought and knocked out an older Leon Spinks;

Tom "the bomb" Glesby - from Welland, Ontario - went to a couple Olympic games;

Troy Amos Ross - top amateur Canadian light-heavy, been to numerous international, World and Olympic games;

Donovan Boucher - ex Canadian and Commonwealth pro welterweight champ;

Dan Sherry - ex pro boxer from Toronto (Burlington), well known for his international experience as an amateur (he gave me my first skipping rope when I was training briefly at Cabbagetown boxing club in Toronto - very nice guy);

Egerton Marcus - internationally known ex amateur - fought some top names as a pro - now a heavyweight (my wife has relatives in Virginia Beach, VA, and Egerton trained and fought out of the SCOPE in Norfolk - he trained with Pernell Whitaker - I tried to meet up with him when we were vacationing down there - never materialized);

Sparred several times with...

Donny "bad boy" Clark - good amateur - soon to turn pro.

That's the works.

Ronnie.

_________________________________
A straight arm's still a broken arm - Master JPF

[edro]

3216549870

[GROUND CONTROL]

Trained with:
Rickson, Renzo, Royce, Roger Machado, F. Shamrock, Sean Alvarez, Ricardo Almeida, Matt Serra, Rodrigo Gracie, Nick Serra.

Met:
Rigan, Renato, Nino, Gordinho, Ryan Gracie, Marcio Feitosa, Luis Freitas, Ricco Chipparrelli, Caique, Rorion, Renner, Rockson, Maguilla, Gustavo Machado, Mario Sperry, Jacare

[The Colonie Crusher]

Do you train with Renzo down in NYC? The last time (and also the first time) I was there, there was this big as phuck guy training down there. He told me and some guys he was 280, I know you said you were about 275, was that guy you?

[GROUND CONTROL]

It probably was. Usually Sean A. meets me there and we roll. Was Sean there? My weight is around 260-265 right now. I am trying to get to 255 before I compete in December.
I am trying get in top shape. I competed in Oct at 266 so my weight is coming down gradually.


[Edited by GROUND CONTROL on 11-05-2000 at 08:43 PM]

[The Colonie Crusher]

Yeah I think it was you. I only did BJJ for about 6 weeks with Nick Sanzo before I decided to return to amateur boxing. Nick is a good teacher. I don't know if you remember him, he lost to Bohlander in the middleweight finals one year in the UFC. When I was down there, he pointed out who Sean Alvarez(sp?) was. He looked big as well! He also looked like he had some skill. All of the guys down at Renzo's were very cool. After I'm done boxing, I'd like to return to BJJ, but that's another story.

[Bau13]

um...nobody...I live in Hong Kong...

If it means anything I did meet Jackie Chan a few times..

[Mako]

Wow, i'm impressed at some of these lists! Then again, in L.A. I figure you bump into 2 or 3 famous fighters just going to the grocery store, right?

In Texas, the list is much shorter, but i've been fortunate through business travel to meet and train with some cool guys, here's my short list:

Rey Diogo, Rickson Gracie, Royce Gracie, Jacare, Lou Vintaloro (Royler Purple Belt), Erik Paulson, Dan Inosanto, Carlos Machado.

(if you were to ask this NEXT week, I could add Marcelo Alonso and Hura!)

[GROUND CONTROL]

That definately was me. That was my first time back rolling after rehabing an injury. I remember Nick rolling with Sean that day. Sean is a brown belt under Renzo. He also was the Super Heavy Runner up at Abu Dhabi in 98, 99. He was the absolute runnerup to Kerr in 2000.