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Roland "Doomster" Sarria Interview By Michael Onzuka - Mike@onzuka.com www.fcfighter.com 
With the mixed martial arts movement gaining approval from boxing commissions and the general public, promoting fights has been and will continue to be big business. It seems as though American events other than the UFC are slowly climbing the ladder to gain popularity to match Japanese events. Each territory has its big name. Hawaii has T. Jay Thompson, California has Terry Trebilcock, the East Coast has Jamie Levine, the Midwest has Monte Cox, and Roland "Doomster" Sarria is becoming or may already be the man in Arizona. Coming from an athletic background and moving on to Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, Sarria is also an accomplished instructor who is breeding fighters by the truckload, mainly to fight in his events. He run events monthly so not only his fighters, but the fighters in the vicinity have a venue to stay busy and get experienced. Sarria is trying a different approach in order to spice up mixed martial arts events by bringing more entertainment aspects to his shows. While in Arizona, I stopped by to talk to Doomster at his BRAUSA [short for Brazil USA] Academy shortly before his March RITC event.FCF: First, let's start off on how you got the name "Doomster"... Roland Sarria: Maybe about seven years ago I was training at the Rickson Gracie Academy and I came from a football background...I really didn't know much about the martial arts and I guess you could say that I was blessed with a lot of physical strength and I had a tendency to lift people up and drop them thinking I was playing football, and then some guy just goes, "Whoa, you doomed that guy," and ever since then, I just kept that name. That's how it happened. FCF: How long did you train with Rickson? RS: I started with Rickson in '94...the summer of '94, right when he came back from his Vale-Tudo [in Japan]. I was with him roughly about a year and a half. FCF: At what belt ranking did you leave? RS: I was blue belt when I left in...I want to say '95, and I moved to Orange County and I trained with Rodrigo Gracie, Ken Gabrielson, and John Lober and that's where I was promoted to purple and brown. In the last four and a half years, I've been here in this state [Arizona] by myself. I guess I did the biggest no-no you can do in martial arts, I pretty much self promoted myself and I competed recently against David Meyers from the Machados in a black belt super fight and I tied him, but I lost on an advantage point. Since that tournament, I have been approached by half a dozen black belts--pretty well known black belts--that have been wanting to promote me to black belt, but unfortunately I just decided to stay to myself. That's the route I'm taking as far as belt system, as far as Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. FCF: Why not go with someone who could legitimize your black belt? RS: It's pretty personal, but I think it stems back to when I was competing as a brown belt. I felt like I was...you could say set up each tournament going against Margarida Pontes and Roger Ruiz, I can't remember the rest of the names and I always came in about 170 pounds. I walk around about 200 pounds. I feel like I was always ambushed with these tournaments and all they had to be is up front with me. I'll go in at 195 against Margarida anytime, but don't tell me he's 170. Just little things like that and I think the reason I decided to stay by myself is because I think the only reason a black belt would want to promote me maybe because of my reputation as a promoter, not really because of my skill and I think it revolves around money and I'm not in a position to let a so called famous black belt promote me because to be honest with you, for the last four and a half years, I pretty much trained on my own. Why should I go under a black belt when he never really taught me anything? That's how I look at it. That's my attitude. FCF: How are you gaining in technique and skill since you are by yourself? RS: Actually, being alone is the biggest handicap for me especially now that I am 38-years-old. As a competitor, it hurts me a lot. That's why lots of times when I go to California, especially as a brown belt, I competed seven times, and out of those five brown belts that I went against, five of them are well known, established brown belts in Brazil and I pretty much held my own. Currently, I've never lost to any guy in my weight class as far as brown or black. It hurts me a lot because I go into shock because the pace is kind of fast and there are some moves that are somewhat a little new to me and it takes me a little while to adjust, but I would say as a competitor in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, it's probably the worst thing I have ever done, moving here, but as far as a business stand point, it was the best move I ever did. Would I change anything? No. FCF: Where do you get your new techniques? Is it just from competition or do you study videotapes? RS: Yeah, I study tapes, but I play a very basic game. I'm never going to be a finesse player. I've realized that early on. I'm more of a power player. I basically stick to six to ten moves and because of my strength, regardless how much technique the person has, I think I can adjust to them, hopefully, within the matches, but lots of times because of the crowd and etcetera, you don't have a lot of time. I'm a better academy player than I am a tournament player. I think about 99% of the guys that beat me in a tournament, I think I would do fairly well with them in a classroom setting and I think a lot of it is because I never really competed as a white, blue, or purple. I went right into it as a brown belt and I never really had time to grow in competition. FCF: I think I've read some place that you list yourself as pound for pound the strongest Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu artist. Where does that stem from? RS: Again, it goes back to the Rickson days. I've trained with a lot of guys privately, from the John Lobers to the...I actually don't want to mention names, but yeah I can still back that up. I'll match anyone strength for strength, just genetics. I have tendon strength that is a kind of fast twitch thick tendons that some people have it, some people don't. I can honestly represent that in submission grappling too and no-holds-barred. I just don't think that anyone can match my strength and power. Technique-wise, yeah, they could probably out beat me there and maybe experience, but as far as pure power, I don't think anyone can. FCF: Have you entered power-lifting competitions? RS: No, actually that's the funny part, I'm not that strong in the weight room. I think, again, it stems down to, I guess, body control. I don't know what it is. I was a division-one nose guard in college, sorry, actually I was a junior college nose guard two years in a row in El Camino College in Torrance and I think that might have helped me to develop a lot of leverage. My leverage is, it's just like some athletes, things just come to them naturally. The body feels natural to me as far as lifting. Actually, I'm not that strong in the weight room. I'm a little better than average, but nothing spectacular. FCF: Do you come from a wrestling or Judo background or strictly Jiu-Jitsu? RS: Actually, I don't come from a martial arts background at all. I come from strictly football. I played football all my life and I play a little basketball, but I have no background in martial arts at all, other than in 1994, I got into it with the Gracie brothers. As far as cage fighting, I really believe that's my game, even though I've never fought and I really don't know what I can do in the ring because I've never done it. I can only go by what I do in class with the guys that have had a lot of success. I believe I will shock the world at 170-pounds. FCF: Let's talk about your event, Rage In The Cage. You have been very successful running a lot of events very frequently. Fill us in on how that started. RS: It started about two and a half years ago; I went to watch a fight they had locally here in Phoenix. I thought about it and thought about it and I was approached by a lot of people and I take that back, I was the matchmaker for that event. The people I was working with, they came from a boxing background. I really didn't like the way they were doing things because it was all about money and something I don't really believe in. As a promoter, as you all know, we all need money to survive and make these events flourish and get better, but my attitude was a bit different than theirs and I decided to do it back in November of ‘98 and I didn't have a penny to my name. I basically went out, got some flyers through a friend's business we went door to door, event to event, and we just opened it up one night at a nightclub and we drew about 600 people. Ever since then, it's growing. This past January show, on a Saturday night, we drew unofficially probably about 2400 people. Even though officially, they said 2200. Our recent one in February, we drew about 1400 unofficially. That was a Thursday night, but the owner of the facility was so impressed with the event that he guaranteed me shows for the rest of the year, once a month on Saturday nights. I think Arizona has a good fan base and it also has a good fight base. I think the only thing that hurts the event is the sponsors. I just don't have the money backing, the support to take this event to the next level and that is what's killing me right now. FCF: Don't you feel that quarterly events would be possibly help to increase profits to help grow your events? RS: Actually, I've been approached by that question a lot and actually last year I tested it. I did it every five weeks. I was watching the attendance and it kept growing. I kept thinking to myself, if it keeps growing, obviously there's a thirst for this event so this year, I'm taking a chance doing it every four weeks. So far, actually this event in March will be interesting to see if it is going to drop the attendance or grow. Personally, I think it's going to grow. I think we have enough fan base and enough fighters here that we can do it once a month. I'm just going to take it event by event, but I really believe that this event one day will be really big in the valley and I think I could draw at least ten to fifteen thousand people if I have the money. I have a mailing list of over six thousand people, not counting my email. I did my homework in that area. I guarantee you I am the poorest promoter there is out there. What I mean is, I have less money to do any event in the country, but yet I'm the busiest promoter as far as doing events. If I just had a little bit of money, I believe I could draw five to ten thousand people once a month no problem. I do the little things that a lot of promoters don't do because I have to. I have no money so I have to think of other ways to draw a crowd. I go out with my eighty students, plus I hire flyer patrols, you name it. We hit the streets because we don't have the money to advertise. FCF: Is it tough to find enough fighters to run events every month? It seems to me that you would run out of fighters. RS: Actually, I thought so too, but we average eighteen fights a month and we have to turn down fighters. I think what helps is the fact that I have over fifty fighters, so that helps me out too. I tend to have a flow of fighters constantly coming my way. I was in the nightclub business for sixteen years before I got into this kind of event so I believe as far as this area, I'm way ahead of a lot of promoters as far as putting together the production of a show. Personally, I've been to a lot of cage fights around the country. I think mine as far as talent-wise, I wouldn't say we have the best talent in the country, but I can almost guarantee you that I have the most entertaining show in the country. I have three emcees. The crowd is relentlessly into the show. We interact with the crowd. It's kind of a little bit of WWF as far as entertainment and fighting because I believe in order for mixed martial arts to go to the next level, I'm not saying to throw sex out there because that's not what I do. I don't have bikini girls, but you got to give it a little taste of entertainment to keep the crowd somewhat entertained kind of like arena football. I was totally against arena football until I went to watch it and I sat there and I go, "Wow. I'm more entertained by what's going on than the game." Unlike football, you just watch the game. It gets a little boring. I recently went to a cage fight that had fantastic fighters, but I'll be honest with you, I was bored. You sit in a chair for five hours. It gets a little boring, but if you have several emcees that have a certain job to entertain the crowd. For example, I have one emcee that is very structured, "in the right corner, in the left corner." Then, I have another emcee that gets the crowd involved and educates the crowd on what's going on and then I have another emcee that's a cheerleader and they just switch. They're on corners and they just look at each other, he takes over and the crowd just goes berserk. Our crowd gets into it, I mean, through the entire show and we also play music during our fights, while the fighters are fighting. So, it's a little bit different. FCF: Do you find that the music distracts the fighters or do any fighters say that the music distracts them in anyway? RS: Actually, you would think it would, but the reaction that we got from a lot of fighters, it actually motivates them. It's kind of like when you're running and you have headphones on and you hear, maybe Rocky or something, you run harder and that's the same thing they feel. Unfortunately, as a promoter, my number one priority is to take care of the fighters, but I also have to take care of the crowd. That means I have to entertain them, but what I mean by that is, if they are on the ground too long and there's no movement or any forward progress, even though if it's my student and he's a grappler, he's loves it to be on the ground, I still have to entertain the crowd a little bit. Unfortunately, it's like a fine line, but in order for this sport to grow, you also got to make the crowd happy and I listen to the crowd. The crowd will let me know what they want. I'll override it for a little while, but the crowd keeps persisting, I'll go, "bring them back up." FCF: So you referee all your events? RS: No, no, I don't referee the events. I am one of the emcees. Again, I was an emcee in the entertainment world so I'm what you would call a cheerleader. I get the crowd going. I follow the fight, so depending on what's going on in the fight is how my voice level changes. I watch the crowd so I'm kind of going up and down. I just kind of watch and get in to it. I put my mind in to the crowd's mind when their heartbeat rises up, I go higher and I pick up the music. I go "uhhhhh" [voice raise in pitch, we both laugh]. FCF: Where do you find most of your fighters? In the Phoenix and Tempe area or out of state? RS: Right now because legally we are not allowed to pay any fighters. By that, it pretty much tells you where our budget stands and even if we were able to pay fighters, we're in a position that we just don't have the money so what we do is, I have half the battle won because half of my guys are always fighting so I go around and call other academies or I put an ad in the paper and that's basically how I find my fighters. I would say 90% of my fighters come out of Phoenix and a little out of Tucson, but until lately, we're beginning to get a couple of them from California now. Recently, we had Todd Medina [Carlson Gracie Fight Team] and we also had the Shark Tank and Tedd Williams Combat Team. We've actually had pretty decent talent through the Rage in the Cage. We've had Ricco Rodriguez fight twice, Joe Pardo, Christophe Leninger. We had Stevenson, Orlando McKee. For the level of the show, as far as talent, we've actually had some decent talent come through and it seems like it's getting better and better and better. We just need to get some Hawaiians now [both laughs]. Actually, I have two students that are Hawaiian. FCF: How do you match up fighters when you do not know their background without over-matching each fighter? RS: That's the hardest part because our event is Saturday night and I only have roughly three to four hours to decide who's going to be matched. I pretty much sit down individually and interview them, get a little background on them. Depending on their background and their physical structure so it can be a good well balanced fight; that isn't too boring. Sometimes when you put two guys that are technical, like say two Jiu-Jitsu players, unfortunately, I mean me as a Jiu-Jitsu player, I love it, but the crowd doesn't, so I kind of try to match them up. If I got two street fighters that look like Hulk Hogan, I put them together because the crowd likes it. The crowd...it's going to sound bizarre what I'm going to say, but the crowd like those junkyard dog guys, you know body slamming, no technique. It seems like the less technique they have, the more the crowd gets in to it, but in the last six months, it seems to be changing though. It's a good following so they are beginning to understand what an arm-bar or a triangle is so they are actually beginning to veer towards the technician a little bit more now. I would say 70/30 they still like the junkyard dogs. FCF: So it's up to you to match up your fighters with only two to three hours before the event? RS: Actually [laughs], believe it or not, I can do it within thirty minutes and you're looking at close to fifty fighters sometimes. I'll just look at the guy, put some things down, go in to a room by myself. Occasionally, I'll have a preset fight. I would say 99% of the time, I set up the fights the day of the event. FCF: Do you have any trouble with the fighters because they have no idea of who they will fight? RS: As far as they being unhappy and notifying me, they seldom do. They pretty much know the deal. I tell them over the phone. I told fighters that have fought in the past, "You will not know your fight until maybe half an hour before the event." The ones that fought for me before will call me and say, "Roland, I want to fight that one guy." Other than that, when you show up, you really don't know who you are going to fight. It can be pretty scary. I try to pair the guys up by experience. A lot of times if the guy tells you he's this and this and that, you don't know if he's telling you the truth or not so that's another judgment. I go by feel. I feel the guy out. I look at the way he carries his voice and his body and that's pretty much how I go. So far, I think I've done a fairly good job. As you know, you can't always be perfect so you are always going to have one or two guys go, "You set me up with this guy." My attitude is, when you come to fight, that's the chance you take. I try to be as fair as I can because as a promoter, the last thing I want to do is lose the trust of the fighters because once they don't trust me, I will lose and that means they are not going to come back and fight for my event again. For example, if there are two fighters and they are uneven and I know that, I will come up to the fighter that isn't as talented and say you can pull out right now if you want, but unfortunately, we don't have a guy for you and you fell into this fighter. I'm letting you know he's this and that and that. You can pull out. It's not that big of a deal. I would say 99.9% of the time, they still follow up on it and they do continue fighting. FCF: As far as your students, do you have a requirement before you let them step in the ring? 
RS: Yeah, I pretty much give them three months before they get in to the ring. I don't know if I'm smart or dumb when it comes to this subject. I believe why train and train and train for a fight, you're never going to have? You just can't substitute live fighting for practice fighting. Most of my guys within three months, there's no questions asked, they fight. I pretty much come up to them and say, "You ready to fight?" and 99.9, they always say, "Yup," but I'm not going to set them up with somebody who is very experienced. Our school is pretty friendly, our only requirement here is if you have an attitude, you cannot train here and you have to leave, especially if you come here and try to hurt people. That's just something we don't tolerate here. Win or lose, we don't take it personal. Myself, I don't ever, ever yell at my guys when they lose because to me he's a champion being in the ring. Especially me that has never fought, who am I to yell at a guy who got in the ring and gave it all he had, but yet I've never been in there. Other than if he quits because he is tired, I would say that is the only thing that bothers me.FCF: You have just stated that you haven't fought yet. Is there any reason why being such a successful promoter and producer of many fighters? RS: I'll be up front with you. The reason I don't fight, obviously, is because of my ego. I'm afraid to lose. I'm afraid that if I lose, will I be the same person that I think I am and what are people going to think of me? That's the main reason I don't fight. I'm not afraid of anybody. I'm more afraid of me. How am I going to deal with it and that's the problem I'm having with myself. The biggest reason in the past why I didn't get into it was because I was in the entertainment business. I worked at clubs with male dancers and you know, my face and stuff played a big role, but now I don't do that anymore. I'm afraid of the unknown, but I'm not what you call a premeditated fighter. Somebody can't come up to me and say, "You'll be fighting in two weeks." I'm the type if I walk outside and somebody slaps me, I'll go. I know my destiny is to fight. I'll probably fight when I'm forty, when I wake up [laughs]. I walk around at 195, but I think my fighting weight is about 170. I really think it's going to be really tough to beat me at 170, especially in cage fighting. I'm actually thinking about doing it this Saturday. I don't know we'll see. I've been saying this for five years [laughs]. FCF: How much do you and your students practice inside a cage since you don't have a cage in your school? RS: Actually, we don't practice in a cage. We practice on a grappling mat. My guys train roughly four to six days a week. We have a different style than most people as far as cage fighting. We seldom ever train full speed. What I mean is full speed to the face and body. We actually go 40% of fighting to the head and body. We always wear headgear when it comes to the face. We go open hands to the face. When we spar with the kicking, we go nice and easy because we fight so much, in my personal opinion, there is no reason why these guys should really kill each other in practice. My past experience is every time we try to do that, they get hurt. We just tone it down to the point where everything we do is just repetitious. I tell the guys we are just going to play a basic game. Forget all the training tapes. Forget all that gi stuff. That's not going to work in the cage fight. This is how we're going to pass the guard in three moves. This is how we're going to side mount three moves. Just master these moves. Do it for three years and then go to the next level. We keep it really simple and don't put a lot of pressure on the fighters. I believe our fighters are the busiest fighters in the country. We fight twice a month practically. Sometimes the guys fight twice a night. It depends. Our conditioning is unbelievable. I kind of follow the Matt Furey system, a lot of strength conditioning. I guess with my background, I believe power plays a big role. I don't mean power, but conditioning strength so the muscles don't get fatigued. FCF: Do you accent your training by bringing in other trainers such as boxers or kickboxers? RS: I've been real fortunate to have a kickboxing instructor that teaches twice a week and we have several college wrestlers from ASU [Arizona State University] area that train the takedowns. We also have a black belt that teaches Judo, so I still believe that 80% of the fight is still the ground so we do specialize on the ground, but as far as the other areas, we basically touch the surface of it, not to the point that we are going to enter a Judo tournament or a kickboxing tournament, just so we know what the opponents are going to do to us. FCF: Do you think you can take your event to the next level without financial backing? RS: It's going to take a little longer, but obviously, I would love to do a show like King Of The Cage with those fantastic great athletes out there, but I just don't have the financing and I'm not allowed to give out money, but I'm in the process of making this show a pro show. I believe that I'm two to five years away from taking it to the next level. I'm beginning to pick up some momentum now because I've got the best venue in the state. I've got a beautiful arena. You've got to see it to believe it. It holds about 2800 people. FCF: What are the laws in Arizona like? You mentioned that you couldn't give out money for your fights. RS: Technically, it's an amateur event so I'm not allowed to give out any trophies, any medals, or any money. It makes it real difficult to get some quality talent, other than people doing favors. FCF: What do you have to do to make this a professional event? RS: Have the boxing commission accept it and some of the politicians. I can do it at the casinos if I wanted to probably, but I'm kind of hoping I can keep it inside the city. [I] just have to take care of a couple issues and then we'll have a pro show. Actually, our reputation for what we do, we probably have one of the better reputations in the state. We actually have nothing but positive feedback through advertising in magazines and TV. We have had positive reviews. That's why the boxing commissions and other people leave us alone because we run a real tight ship, a real professional show. FCF: Thank you and good luck with your future shows. RS: Thank you. |
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