KILLEEN, TX, July 16, 2012 – ABG Association returns with their latest Central Texas amateur MMA event this coming Friday, July 20th. Entitled Cage Wars 2012, this event planned for the Killeen Civic Center is set to feature ten bouts with up-and-coming talent coming in to compete from South Texas and the Houston area in addition to those fighters from Twin Wolves, the host team for this production.
The main event of the evening will feature Twin Wolves’ Travis Moore (4-0) taking on Santos Rosales (4-1) of Corpus Christi’s FCFA/Paragon team with the ABG welterweight title on the line.
We recently caught up with Travis to learn more about him ahead of this fight.
As it turns out, he’s got quite the story.
“I’ve had a lot of crazy moments,” he says. “I was on my way to my first fight when driving to the venue I got my car smashed by an airport shuttle van… When I made it out of that ok and still went on to win my fight an hour later, I knew that this was something I was meant to do.”
Going back further than that, Travis spoke about his childhood experiences (like most of us, it involved karate) and his metamorphosis from high school tennis standout to fighter after catching the UFC bug and ending up in the gym puking after his first grappling lesson. Since then he’s been involved in BJJ, Muay Thai, and Boxing. It’s been about five years now that he’s trained and he’s loved every minute of it.
Currently 4-0 in amateur competition, Travis will be walking into the cage undefeated this Friday night but that does mean he hasn’t experienced tough times along the way.
By his own admission, this year has been one of the toughest of his life.
“Before my last fight my father was diagnosed with thyroid cancer… I’m really close to my parents so for me this was a really hard period of time. Thank God they found it early and were able to remove it all. Also my last training camp was pretty tough, the first day I got kneed in the face and had a long visit to the ER to get stitched up, and after my weigh ins last fight I got food poisoning from eating some raw meat, I stayed up puking until about 6am but knew I had to fight in front of my hometown nothing was going to stop me.
Taking the bad with the good, he remains determined to preserve.
Travis will face a stiff test this Friday night from Rosales, a seasoned amateur with a 4-1 record that holds a TKO win over current undefeated 5-0 pro and 3x Bellator veteran Josh Quayhagen.
“I know he is a tough opponent,” says Travis about his Corpus Christ-based opponent.
“I got a lot of respect for the guy and I’m definitely not taking him lightly. All I can say is don’t blink. I’ve never been a point fighter in anything I do. No matter where this fight goes, I’ll be looking to finish it. My motivation is becoming the champion and finally getting some recognition. I’ve visualized this fight hundreds of times in my head and I can see it going a lot of ways, but every time the ending is with my hands raised and the belt on my waist!”
Fighter Acknowledgements
First I want to thank God for blessing me with all that he has, I really feel I have been given all this talent for a reason!! Secondly I got to thank my parents for being two of the most amazing people in the world and supporting me in chasing my dream… I also have to think my main coach Grey Tisdale, and Gym owner Hector Ruiz for the support they are awesome… Outside of that of course my training partners that have taken the time to help me prepare, Crossfit Beyond Limits here in Killeen for pushing my conditioning. Also my sponsors, Freedom Jeep in Killeen has gone out of there way pushing this event they are really great, Fightwordz a great t-shirt company really badass stuff, Beauty and the beast cleaning, Allstate Killeen, Killeen Eyecare.. Looking forward to the fight, Thanks for the interview mike hopefully a lot more to come – Travis Moore