What are Rex's actual credentials?

Fair question, and you should be asking it of anybody who wants to teach you how to fight.

Three black belts. First-generation Brazilian jiu-jitsu, which means my line goes back to the people who brought it to this country rather than through a seminar weekend. Kenpo. Tang Soo Do. Three different arts, earned over decades, not collected.

Teaching: hired in 2007 to teach no-gi jiu-jitsu and MMA at Hostility MMA, Ventura’s first MMA gym. Opened Rock N Roll Fight Company in 2008 and have run it since. That is close to twenty years of coaching in one county, which is its own kind of credential, because people here either know me or know somebody who trained with me.

Competing: I turned pro in MMA at 42. Make of that what you like. It means I have been in there myself at an age when most coaches are only talking about it.

Coaching results: six fighters who trained under me reached The Ultimate Fighter and the UFC. Names, not vague claims, and they are listed on the fighters page.

The specialty inside all of it is no-gi grappling, and it has been since the Hostility days. It is what I teach most, what the gym was known for, and what feeds straight into MMA and self-defense. See what no-gi jiu-jitsu is.

Turning pro at 42 is unusual enough that it comes up in most first conversations, so whether I still compete answers that one. For the man rather than the list, see who Coach Rex is.

What I do not have is a certificate for every acronym in the sport, and I am not going to pretend otherwise. Ask me anything you want about any of it. I would rather answer than have you take it on faith. See how to check for yourself.