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 early 90's I started training with friends
in various forms of martial arts. I was fortune
to be able to workout with boxer's, kickboxer's,
JKD guys and wrestlers. 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.
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.
