By Mike Calimbas (Twitter | Facebook)

KILLEEN, TX, March 8, 2012 – Mixed Martial Arts returns to San Antonio this Saturday night when Premiere Combat Group presents Cowboys Extreme Cagefighting (CEC) at Cowboys Dance Hall. At the time of this writing, the card is set to feature ten bouts of amateur MMA action for fans in attendance, including several exciting prospects coming in from out of town – specifically several active-duty soldiers from nearby Fort Hood who’ll be testing their application of Modern Army Combatives techniques by fighting in the PCG cage.

These guys put on a pretty good show. For those of you that don’t remember or weren’t around to see it, Ray “The Judge” Rodriguez of Fort Hood Fight House put on one of the most exciting KO’s of the year thus far in the amateur level with his flying knee KO of Josh Rios at PCG 8 this past January. We’ll post that video at the end of this post courtesy of Spida Garay and our friends over at TexasFighting but make sure to read below as Ray talks more about Fort Hood Fight House and what we can expect from them this coming Saturday at the PCG Fights in San Antonio.

Interview – Ray “The Judge” Rodriguez (Fort Hood Fight House)

Tell us a little bit about Ft. Hood Fight House. What’s it like training in that environment?

Well essentially we are full-time Modern Army Combatives Instructors for Fort Hood. We get to the gym around 0615, instruct combatives until 1100, then while most people are out enjoying their lunch, we are training standup and punching each other in the face until 1300 with our standup coach “Top” Fuentes who is a First sergeant. After lunchtime practice we finish instructing our classes until about 1700 then get in our cars and drive to American Fight Company where we train BJJ under black belt Jarrod Clontz. Our days are crazy man. We are with each other from the time we get to work early in the morning to late at night after BJJ practice.

You guys definitely sound tight-knit. How would you describe your team’s personality as a whole?

Man I have never trained with a team as determined as the guys I’m with now. We have around 10 guys who train with us on an everyday basis and five of us have championship belts. We have a very competitive team. Light sparring days usually turn into main event type fights. We are all alpha males and don’t like coming in second place…..even if it is just practice.

What do you think motivates you guys to succeed in this sport?

Honestly just the fact that we have so many soldiers looking up to what we do… Soldiers are without a doubt one of the biggest if not the biggest followers of MMA. It is great coming back from a fight Monday morning and having hundreds of guys patting you on your back and saying they want to train MMA now because of what they saw you do.

You’ve got some guys fighting this weekend in San Antonio’s Premiere Combat Group right? Tell us a little bit about who’s on tap for this Saturday.

We actually have four guys fighting this weekend for Premiere Combat Group in San Antonio. First we have Brian Sullivan who is a 145er and is 1-0. This guy is a phenomenal wrestler and is a sponge when it comes to learning new techniques despite being fairly new to the team. Next up is Jason Reyes who is a purple belt under Jarrod Clontz and is a snake off of his back. He is fighting at 195 but looks likes Alistair Overeem’s bigger brother. Then there’s Phil Platt who is 155 is currently 1-1. His loss was due to a controversial knee in Louisiana where the ref disqualified him but he’s coming back from that. He is one of the team’s rising stars and we think his standup are similar to Jose Aldo’s style. He constantly moves forward and is definitely a crowd pleaser. He will earn a title shot for Elite Amateur Combat in April against Andrew Musquiz if he wins this weekend. Finally we have Brandon Farmer at 185. He doesn’t have one skill set that he is good at but he is great at every single aspect of MMA. Farmer has only been training with us for a little over a year but has raised eyebrows since day one. All I can say is it is hard as hell keeping sparring partners for him.

What are you expecting to see when these guys take the cage?

FIREWORKS!!!

When are you getting back in there personally?

I’m not sure man. It’s kind of up in the air whether I am going to go pro for my next fight or not. It is unfortunate to say that I will not be at the fight house come April due to me getting out of the army and going home to San Antonio. It’s going to be hard finding a new gym and teammates like my brothers at the fight house. We have been together for years and have all had our first MMA fights together. Once I find a place in San Antonio where I can call home I will be on the phone with my manager Larry Moreno looking for a fight. As far as my last fight, it was a dream come true. I won the title in my hometown via 58 second knockout by flying knee with a sold out crowd behind me. They make movies about that kind of stuff man, and I was lucky enough to be put in the situation for that to happen.

What’s next for you guys?

Just hard work, I’m pretty sure the guys will be back in the gym come Monday getting ready for their next challenge. We have one of our brothers Dominic Brisbin who recently won the Fort Hood Combatives championship in his weight class deploying to Afghanistan within the next few weeks so we will probably be just hanging out with him as much as possible before he leaves.

Why should fans go out and buy tickets to watch the Fight House guys in action at PCG this Saturday?

We like to put on a show for the fans; about 90% of our fights are stoppages within the first round. We fight the way we train, and we train to FINISH THE FIGHT EVERYTIME!

Any last words for your fellow soldiers coming to watch you fight?

Thank you guys so much, it means so much to us as fighters to know each and every one of you have our back when we are in the cage. We appreciate you guys traveling all over Texas to support us, I feel like anywhere we fight we have the home field advantage just because so many guys show up and support us.

We’d all like to give a huge thank you to our striking coach “Top” Fuentes. He’s traveled with us all over the place, whether it’s Louisiana, Oklahoma, or right here in Texas for fights. All the guys have improved greatly since he started helping out the team and he’s a great coach, mentor, and most of all a great friend to all of us so we definitely appreciate him 100%.

Also I would like to send a special thanks to Jennifer Trevino and Premiere Combat Group; they always make sure they have spots for our guys on their card. Their professionalism shows and the way they treat their fighters is second to none. Also big thanks to all of our sponsors and coaches for being there through thick and thin. Also big thanks to TXMMA.COM.