Who is Coach Rex Pena?

I am the coach, the owner and, right now, the whole company. Book a session and I am who turns up. Nobody hands you off to an assistant.

I hold three black belts. First-generation Brazilian jiu-jitsu, Kenpo and Tang Soo Do. I started teaching no-gi jiu-jitsu in 2007 at Hostility MMA, which was the first MMA gym in Ventura, and I opened Rock N Roll Fight Company in 2008. I have been coaching in this county ever since, which is long enough that I have now taught the children of people I taught.

I fought as well. I turned pro in MMA at 42. That is not a normal age to do it and I am not going to pretend I was chasing a title. I wanted to know what it was like from the inside before I spent the rest of my life telling other people to do it. Now I corner instead. Six fighters who came through me reached The Ultimate Fighter and the UFC, Tony Ferguson furthest of all, and which fighters I have trained has the names.

The other half of me is the music. I front The Pretty Uglys, a rock band out of Ventura, and our debut record came out in 2017. That is where the gym’s name comes from. I have never seen a reason to keep the two things apart, and neither should you. See why it is called Rock N Roll Fight Company.

What I am like to train with: blunt and warm at the same time, if I have got it right. I will tell you plainly what you are doing badly. I will not make you feel small while I do it, and I do not raise my voice. I have coached kids, grandmothers, cops and professional fighters and none of them get talked down to.

What I am not is a salesman. If I think you should wait, or train somewhere else, or see a doctor first, I say so.

You do not have to take any of this on my word. The fighters are named, the gym history is public, and this county is small enough that somebody at any local gym remembers me. See how to check that any of it is true.

And the reason I am in your garage rather than a room with my name over the door is worth understanding before you book: why I coach out of a truck.

More on my background and the fighters.