WESTCLIFFE, Colorado, March 27, 2012 – Somewhere high above the rest of the world in Colorado’s Rocky Mountains, Chad Robichaux has woken up this morning ready to face another day at Mighty Oaks, the Christian-based wounded warrior foundation he relinquished control of his North Houston-based Gracie Barra Academies for in order to help veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. A combat vet himself, Chad is all too aware of the struggles these soldiers go through after coming home from active duty. The organization’s website cites numbers like 18 (the number of vets that commit suicide in America daily) and 200,000 (number of homeless vets in this country) as a few of the reasons for their mission. Those are also the main justifications for Chad uprooting his family to move up to the mountains to work with Mighty Oaks.
Aside from giving up his successful gyms to minister and offer training at Mighty Oaks, it was assumed that Robichaux would be giving up his fighting career as well to focus on the foundation. The 36 year old currently holds an 11-2 record in MMA with his last two bouts being back-to-back losses to Zack Makovsky and Jonathan Mackles. He announced his intent to leave the sport to focus on his ministry back in September 2011 but that was short-lived as it was announced in February of this year that he would be coming back to MMA to face UFC-vet Joseph Sandoval on HDNet’s Legacy Fighting Championship 11, scheduled for May 11th. According to him, coming back to MMA allows him to put the Mighty Oaks Wounded Warrior Foundation front-and-center in front of a national audience, the primary purpose for his return.
“I’m so pumped up about this match,” he told us about the flyweight contest. “To represent Mighty Oaks and to share the work God is doing in healing these young heroes is something I hope to showcase with this fight.”
Aside from his fellows at Mighty Oaks, Chad has also gotten help from a few very qualified sources in preparing for this bout against Sandoval. When he comes back to Houston, he’ll do so feeling more prepared than ever.
“I’m not sure if you know but I live right next to Randy Couture, and he has taken me in to train at his personal house every day now for my camp. Brad Anderson is working as my head coach. He was one of Randy’s top guys for coaching his whole career and was on the Olympic Team for wrestling; he came up with Randy. I’m the only one here in a camp getting ready for a match so I’ll have a lot of focus. We are working amazing stuff and great sparring and conditioning at 9200 feet… I’m going to be in shape! I finally for the first time feel that others are focused on prepping me and it helps mentally to not feel alone. I was the coach in Texas. Now I’m the student and that feels good for a change. That doesn’t mean I don’t miss my boys in Texas to death, it’s just nice to get coached again. For the first time in a long time i feel we have a game plan to support my style. It’s been a blessing. God willing Randy and Brad will likely both be in my corner; Brad for sure. It’s going to be great.”