David P. Wilson (Owner - VP - Webmaster): dave(at)nemesisfightgear.com

The idea behind Nemesis Fight Gear LLC was developed while training in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu over the past 10 years. I've worked with several Baltimore fighters during that time and I've experienced first hand how difficult it is for fighters to acquire sponsorship. My main goal has been to help up and coming fighters establish themselves as viable contenders and potential champions.

Taking this idea and making it a reality has been a long journey. Without the help and support of numerous people, Nemesis Fight Gear LLC may not have ever happened. So I would like to take this time to thank everyone that has help me along the way.

At the Age of 5 I started playing baseball at Dundalk Little League. Baseball was a sport that came pretty easy to me. As I progressed and got older, I played for the Yankee Rebels than American League's Post 38. After playing baseball I played for Dundalk High School and than went to Dundalk Community College. In college I had my first couple of serious injuries which cut short my hopes of going any further. A few years later I got the itch again and played in a few semi-pro baseball leagues.

In the Spring of 1997 Renzo Gracie held his first ever Baltimore seminar at Sidekicks Karate in Pasedena MD. A good friend of mine (Shawn Gardner) invited me to come down to the seminar. I thought the sport was cool and started training everyday at Sidekicks. In July 1997 Cliff Parry and myself competed in Renzo Gracie's 2nd Annual East Coast Jiu Jitsu Championship. Neither guy did as well as we expected. Unfortunately the guy we were original training under turned out to be a complete fraud. The guy not only conned his students, the local newspapers & TV stations, he also conned Renzo himself for a brief period of time. Mr. Fraud made up stories about fake mma events and everyone bought into it. Renzo informed Cliff & Dave at his tournament that our instructor was a fraud (Back in 1997 it was hard finding legitimate instructors in our area who had real creditals) and the true story finally came out and we moved on. And within a few weeks of the move, we had a core group of guys that were training together on a regular basis. Finding open space was difficult at first, but we managed to use Cliff's garage and the aerobic's rooms at a local gym. In December 1997 Shawn Gardner & I were at the Powerhouse Gym in Baltimore MD while we were practicing guard passes. John Rallo wanted to see what we were doing because he mentioned that he was hooked on the sport after watching Royce Gracie dominate the early UFC's. Thru training with Shawn & Dave, John was introduced to Cliff Parry and a few other guys learning BJJ a that time.

In April 1998 with only a couple of months of training, John entered and won a local Baltimore grappling tournament called the "Battle of Baltimore" which was being ref'ed by one of Rickson Gracie's Blue Belt instructor Mark Finley. Mark invited the small group of friends to train at the Maryland Jiu-Jitsu Academy (located inside the Baltimore Boxing Club). Within a few months of training under Mark Finley, John Rallo was winning every East Coast BJJ tournament he entered. On a few ocassions other competitors withdrew from events went they saw his name in their bracket. In May 1998 Mark Finley invited John Rallo, Cliff Parry, myself and a few other students to one of Rickson Gracie's seminars in Altantic City, NJ. Cliff Parry received his Blue Belt from Rickson Gracie at the seminar. Cliff was the first guy in our group to receive the blue belt promotion. John got the opportunity to grapple with Rickson. Even thou this was for fun the crowd enjoyed the grappling exhibition that last almost 10 minutes. John out weighed Rickson by almost 100 pounds. Also during the seminar I grappled with Rockson Gracie (Rickson's son). Even though there was an almost 200 lb weight disadvantage, Rockson loved the challenge. During the summer of 1998 John & I started traveling to Laurel MD to work on some boxing training with Coach Robert Crawford in the hopes to start fighting in MMA. In December of 1998 John met Renzo Gracie & Sean Alvarez at the New York City Grappling Challenge.

In early 1999 John & I started traveling from Baltimore to Yonkers New York to train with Sean Alvarez. Around this time the Maryland Jiu-Jitsu Academy moved into the Dundalk YMCA. The new space was larger and provided more mat space. At the YMCA, we come train almost whenever we wanted. Mark Finley started day training for John & I. The Focus of the day training was MMA. John lost his first MMA fight, but in defeat John learned a valuable lesson about the difference of being in physical shape and being in fight shape. We started running stairs and swimming to improve our cardio.

In November 2001 I launched the website www.planetmayhem.net. Originally this site was a link based website that contained links to everything related to mma.

Around the end of 2002 Mark Finley joined the Anne Arundel police department. This led Maryland Jiu Jitsu Academy to leave the Dundalk YCMA. Some of the students started training with Cliff Parry and some of the students began using mat space at Dan San located in Dundalk.

In 2003, what was left of Maryland Jiu Jitsu joined back up with Cliff at the Canton Club Health & Fitness where he was teaching Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. Cliff had an illness in the family, this left an opening John and he took over teaching fulltime. John changed the name from The Maryland Jiu-Jitsu Academy to the Ground Control Baltimore Academy. In February 2003 the Planet Mayhem website was redesigned to focus on the Ground Control Baltimore Academy. Now that potential students were able to find out about Ground Control Baltimore on the internet, the Canton Club became too small. Planetmayhem.net put the Ground Control Baltimore Academy at the forefront of martial arts academies in Baltimore. New students were signing up faster than anyone ever expected. With rumors of the pending sale of the Canton Club. Ground Control moved a few blocks down the road into the Old Broom Factory on the third floor. At this time the Ground Control Baltimore Academy was being led by John Rallo & Rocky Marcantoni.

On April 3, 2004 John was promoted to Brown Belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu by Renzo Gracie. In Early spring of 2005 John suffered a knee injury (ACL) while training for a fight. The injury required surgery and as a result, John was out of action the rest of 2005 and part of 2006. With the birth of my first son Logan in February 2005, I realized my fulltime training days were done. In February 2006 I tore my ACL, MCL, Menicus and PCL while playing football. While recovering from my surgery I decided to start Nemesis Fight Gear LLC.

On November 22nd 2006 John was promoted to Black Belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu under legendary Gracie family member Renzo Gracie. I was very proud to hear about John's new accomplishment. I felt I was a big part of this promotion, because for almost 6 years I was one of John's only training partners.

Over the past couple of years I have made a few appearances at random gyms to get some light sparring in.

(left) Logan Alexander Wilson {Feb 18, 2005} and (right) Landon Andrew Wilson {Jan 29, 2008}

A Special thanks to Binky Jones, Dan Hardy, Mike Ciesnolevicz, Sherman Pendergarst, John Rallo, Sam Hoger, Lucas Ortiz, Noah Inhofer, Steve Rusk, the Ground Control Baltimore Academy, Team Renzo Gracie and Miletich Fighting Systems.