Their new team will be called Zion Mixed Martial Arts and will be affiliated with Renan’s longtime instructor, Pablo Popovitch.
Although Chavez has spent much time training with Paradigm and formerly Elite MMA since moving to Texas, he has always maintained ties with his original instructor and training partners down in Florida, making frequent visits back in order to train with them.
It was during one of those visits that he was finally motivated to make his own way with Zion MMA.
“I saw a lot of my old training partners and they’re having schools with 100’s of students already,” said Renan. “I realized it was time for me to move on with the rest of friends and open my own school here too.”
Adding to that, Evert Gutierrez shares more insight on the motivation behind this move.
Originally our idea was to do this along with Paradigm with Renan running his own school as an affiliate and continue to teach at Paradigm also but politics came in and it didn’t work out. So now we’re doing our own thing. I still respect everybody over at Paradigm and they helped me a lot. Especially guys like Brian and Mike. I respect them a lot so I’d never fight them and wish them well.”
Asked how he felt about leaving Paradigm, Renan offered a simple statement on parting ways with the academy where he’s made his home teaching in recent years.
“I always believed that Paradigm is the best gym to train in Houston for MMA. I love those guys and which I could train with them sometimes but it’s time for me to go.”
Looking ahead to what’s in store for Zion Mixed Martial Arts, both Renan and Evert feel extensive training in both the GI and without it will provide a solid foundation for their students to compete. Their overarching aim will be to produce a very competitive style of jiu-jitsu geared towards competition.
“If you want to swim, you have to get in the water,” Evert says.
Zion Mixed Martial Arts is due to open for business soon (date forthcoming) and will have a full assortment of kickboxing and fitness classes both in the mornings and evenings to cater to adults and kids with all kinds of schedules.
As an opening celebration, they will also be hosting a FREE BJJ and No-GI seminar on Saturday, July 23rd from 2PM to 5PM, featuring Renan along with fellow black belts Fadi Khouri and David Harris of American Top Team.
“We’ve put a lot years of our training into building champions so we’ve proved we can do a great job. If you want to learn efficient and effective techniques for MMA and grappling, stop by and train with us.”
Zion Mixed Martial Arts will be located at 1306 FM 1092, Suit 504, in Missouri City, TX on the corner of Lexington and Murphy. For more information on Zion Mixed Martial Arts, please check out their website at www.zionmixedmartialarts.com.
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