I Have a Dream:
Roland "Doomster" Saria Interview
by Michael Onzuka
With the mixed martial arts
movement gaining approval from boxing commissions and the general
public, promoting fights have and will continue to be big business.
It seems as though American events other than the UFC are slowly
climbing the ladder to gain popularity to match Japanese events.
Each territory has it's big name. Hawaii has T. Jay Thompson,
California has Terry Treblecock, the east coast has Jamie Levine,
the Midwest has Monte Cox, and Roland "Doomster" Saria
is becoming or may already be the man in Arizona. Coming from
an athletic background and moving on to Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu,
Saria is also an accomplished instructor who is breeding fighters
by the truckload, mainly to fight in his events. He run events
monthly so not only his fighters, but the fighters in the vicinity
has a venue to stay busy and get experienced. Saria is trying
a different approach in order to spice up mixed martial arts
events by bring more entertainment aspects to his shows. While
in Arizona, I stopped by to talk to Doomster at his BRAUSA [short
for Brazil USA] academy on March 8, 2001.
FCF: First, let's start
off on how you got the name Doomster.
Roland Saria: Actually, how I got the name is about maybe seven
years ago I was training at the Rickson Gracie Academy and I
came from a football background. I really didn't know much about
the martial arts and I guess you could say that I was blessed
with a lot of physical strength and I had a tendency to lift
people up and drop them thinking I was playing football and then
some guy just goes, "Whoa, you doomed that guy," and
ever since then, I just kept that name. That's how it happened.
FCF: How long did you train
with Rickson?
RS: I started with Rickson in 94', the summer of 94' right when
he came back from his Valetudo I [Author's Note: Valetudo Japan
1994] and I was with him roughly about a year and a half.
FCF: At what belt ranking
did you leave?
RS: I was blue belt when I left in
I want to say 95' and
I moved to Orange County and I trained with Rodrigo Gracie, Ken
Gabrielson, and John Lober and that's where I was promoted to
purple and brown. In the last four and a half years, I've been
here in this state [Arizona] by myself. I guess I did the biggest
no no you can do in martial arts, I pretty much self promoted
myself and I competed recently against David Meyers from the
Machados in a black belt superfight and I tied him, but I lost
on an advantage point. Since that tournament, I have been approached
by half a dozen black belts, pretty well known black belts, that
have been wanting to promote me to black belt, but unfortunately
I just decided to stay to myself. That's the route I'm taking
as far as belt system, as far as Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.
FCF: Why not go with someone
who could legitimize your black belt?
RS: It's pretty personal, but I think it stems back to when I
was competing as a brown belt. I felt like I was
you could
say set up each tournament going against Margarida Pontes and
Roger Ruiz, I can't remember the rest of the names and I always
came in about 170 pounds. I walk around about 200 pounds. I
always feel like I was always ambushed with these tournaments
and all they had to be is up front with me. I'll go in at 195
against Margarida anytime, but don't tell me he's 170. Just
little things like that and I think the reason I decided to stay
by myself is because I think the only reason a black belt would
want to promote me maybe because of my reputation of as a promoter,
not really because of my skill and I think it revolves around
money and I'm not in a position to let a so called famous black
belt promote me because to be honest with you, for the last four
and a half years, I pretty much trained on my own. Why should
I go under a black belt when he never really taught me anything
and that's how I look at it. That's my attitude.
FCF: How are you gaining
in technique and skill since you are by yourself?
RS: Actually, being alone is the biggest handicap for me especially
now that I am 38 years old. As a competitor, it hurts me a lot.
That's why lots of times when I go to California, especially
as a brown belt, I competed seven times and out of those five
brown belts that I went against, five of them are well known,
established brown belts in Brazil and I pretty much held my own.
Currently, I've never lost to any guy in my weight class as
far as brown or black. It hurts me a lot because I go in to
shock because the pace is kind of fast and there are some moves
that are somewhat a little new to me and it takes me a little
while to adjust, but I would say as a competitor in Brazilian
Jiu-Jitsu, it's probably the worst thing I have ever did, moving
here, but as far as a business stand point, it was the best move
I ever did. Would I change anything? No.
FCF: Where do you get your
new techniques from? Is it just from competition or do you study
videotapes?
RS: Yeah, I study tapes, but I play a very basic game. I'm never
going to be a finesse player. I've realized that early on.
I'm more of a power player. I basically stick to six to ten
moves and because my strength, regardless how much technique
the person has, I think I can adjust to them, hopefully, within
the matches, but lots of times because of the crowd and etcetera,
you don't have a lot of time. I'm a better academy player than
I am a tournament player. I think about 99% of the guys that
beat me in a tournament, I think I would do fairly well with
them in a classroom setting and I think a lot of it is because
I never really competed as a white, blue, or purple. I went
right in to it as a brown belt and I never really had time to
grow in competition. When I did compete, I went against some
of the top brown belts in the world, for example, Micah Pittman
from Abu Dhabi, again Margarida Pontes, Elder from Fabio Santos,
and etcetera and I think that's what hurts me a lot.
FCF: I think I've read some
place that you list yourself as pound for pound the strongest
Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu artist. Where does that stem from?
RS: Again, it goes back to the Rickson days. I've trained with
a lot of guys privately from the John Lobers to the, I actually
don't want to mention names, but yeah I can still back that up.
I'll match anyone strength for strength, just genetics. I have
tendon strength that is a kind of fast twitch thick tendons that
some people have it, some people don't. I can honestly represent
that in submission grappling too and no-holds-barred. I just
don't think that anyone can match my strength and power. Technique-wise,
yeah, they could probably out beat me there and maybe experience,
but as far as pure power, I don't think anyone can.
FCF: Have you entered power
lifting competitions?
RS: No, actually that's the funny part, I'm not that strong
in the weight room. I think, again, it stems down to, I guess,
body control. I don't know what it is. I was a division one
nose guard in college, sorry, actually I was a junior college
nose guard two years in a row in El Camino College in Torrance
and I think that might have helped me to develop a lot of leverage.
My leverage is, it's just like some athletes, things just come
to them naturally. The body feels natural to me as far as lifting.
Actually, I'm not that strong in the weight room. I'm a little
better than average, but nothing spectacular.
FCF: Do you come from a
wrestling or Judo background or strictly Jiu-Jitsu?
RS: Actually, I don't come from a martial arts background at
all. I come from strictly football I played football all my
life and I play a little basketball, but I have no background
in martial arts at all, other than in 1994, I got in to it with
the Gracie brothers. I feel like I've hindered my career. It
kind of bothers me now that I'm 38 years old and I've let a lot
of my golden years go by. I'm definitely not the same player
I was maybe five or six years ago. I can tell my stamina is
not quite what it once was and my speed. The two things that
really hurt me was moving out of California and I've gotten a
little older, but I always wanted to do one cage fight, at least
one event because I believe that is my game. I don't believe
that Jiu-Jitsu comes natural to me. It really doesn't because
it takes away most of my avenues of talent, that is my power.
To be a guy that isn't as strong and somewhat control people.
As far as gi-less, I currently did the Grappler's Quest in Las
Vegas. I didn't really care for what happened there too. It
goes back to the weight thing again. They did it to me again.
This guy had to be at least thirty pounds bigger than me. I'm
walking around at 196 and I get down to 166 to make the 167 bracket,
show up on the mat, I see this guy that looks 200 pounds. I
don't feel I did very well. It was a four minute match. It
was more like a Roman Greco match and we never went to the ground.
Actually, I took him to the ground five times and every single
time, it seems like the referee stood us back up. Again, I don't
want to name the country, but it's like, "Come on. What's
going on here?" Because I'm a villain when it comes to
Jiu-Jitsu, and I'll be out front, the Brazilians tend to want
to see me lose. It's only a four minute match and I'm going
against a Roman Greco coach. I'm taking the guy down. I know
we're halfway out of bounds, but, "Hey, scoot us back in."
It was 0-0 and they gave him the decision, something I don't
understand how, but as far as cage fighting, I really believe
that's my game, even though I've never fought and I really don't
know what I can do in the ring because I've never done it. I
can only go by what I do in class with the guys that have had
a lot of success. I believe I will shock the world at 170 pounds.
FCF: Were you familiar with
the Abu Dhabi style rules prior to entering the event?
RS: .Yeah, I currently applied for the Abu Dhabi. Matt Furey
notified me. I was going to go as a Cuban representative because
that's where I'm from and he never got back to me. That's another
thing. This is supposed to be a world event. I'm a Cuban born
athlete and I waited, waited, and waited and I never got the
call and I think I would have done very well at the under 167
bracket. I'm getting older so I don't know how much time I have
left to keep up with these young guys. The only thing I worry
about is stamina. I don't worry about anything else with the
competitors. As you know, I don't know how old you are [Author's
note: I look about 52 years old on good days], but late thirties
you have to think a little bit more because you lose the other
avenues of your life.
FCF: Let's talk about your
event, Rage in the Cage. You have been very successful running
a lot of events very frequently. Fill us in on how that started.
RS: It started about two and a half years ago, I went to watch
a fight they had locally here in Phoenix. I thought about it
and thought about it and I was approached by a lot of people
and I take that back, I was the match maker for that event.
The people I was working with, they came from a boxing background.
I really didn't like the way they were doing things because
it was all about money and something I don't really believe in.
As a promoter, as you all know, we all need money to survive
and make these event flourish and get better, but my attitude
was a bit different than theirs and I decided to do it back in
November of 98 and I didn't have a penny to my name. I basically
went out, got some flyers through a friend's business we went
door to door, event to event, and we just opened it up one night
at a nightclub and we drew about 600 people. Ever since then,
it's growing. Our January show was Saturday night, this past
January 2001, we drew unofficially probably about 2400 people.
Even though officially, they said 2200. Our recent one in February,
we drew about 1400 unofficially. That was Thursday night, but
the owner of the facility was so impressed with the event that
he guaranteed me shows for the rest of the year, once a month
on a Saturday night. I think Arizona has a good fan base and
it also has a good fight base. I think the only thing that hurts
the event is the sponsors. I just don't have the money backing,
the support to take this event to the next level and that is
what's killing me right now.
FCF: Don't you feel that
quarterly events would be possibly help to increase profits to
help grow your events?
RS: Actually, I've been approached by that questions a lot and
actually last year I tested it. I did it every five weeks.
I was watching the attendance and it kept growing. I kept thinking
to myself, if it keeps growing, obviously there's a thirst for
this event so this year, I'm taking a chance doing it every four
weeks. So far, actually this event in March will be interesting
to see if it is going to drop the attendance or grow. Personally,
I think it's going to grow. I think we have enough fan base
and enough fighters here that we can do it once a month. I'm
just going to take it event by event, but I really believe that
this event one day will be really big in the valley and I think
I could draw at least ten to fifteen thousand people if I have
the money. I have a mailing list of over six thousand people,
not counting my email. I did my homework in that area. I guarantee
you I am the poorest promoter there is out there. What I mean
is, I have less money to do any event in the country, but yet
I'm the busiest promoter as far as doing events. If I just had
a little bit of money, I believe I could draw five to ten thousand
people once a month no problem. I do the little things that
a lot of promoters don't do because I have to. I have no money
so I have to think of other ways to draw a crowd. I go out with
my eighty students, plus I hire flyer patrols, you name it.
We hit the streets because we don't have the money to advertise.
FCF: Do you find it tough
to find enough fighters to run events every month? It seems
to me that you would run out of fighters.
RS: Actually, I thought so too, but we average eighteen fights
a month and we have to turn down fighters. I think what helps
is the fact that I have over fifty fighters so that helps me
out too. No, I don't have a problem with fighters. I tend to
have a flow of fighters constantly coming my way. Again, I market
myself differently from other promoters. I do the little things
they don't do and that's probably why they are, I don't know
if they are, but if they are to find fighters that's probably
why, but again I come from a promoting background. I was in
the nightclub business for sixteen years before I got into this
kind of event so I believe as far as this area, I'm way ahead
of a lot of promoters as far as putting together the production
of a show. Personally, I've been to a lot of cage fights around
the country. I think mine as far as talent-wise, I would say
we have the best talent in the country, but I can almost guarantee
you I have the most entertaining show in the country. I have
three MC's. The crowd is relentlessly in to the show. We interact
with the crowd. It's kind of a little bit of WWF as far as entertainment
and fighting because I believe in order for mixed martial arts
to go to the next level, I'm not saying to throw sex out there
because that's not what I do. I don't have bikini girls, but
you got to give it a little taste of entertainment to keep the
crowd somewhat entertained kind of like arena football. I was
totally against arena football until I went to watch it and I
sat there and I go, "Wow. I'm more entertained by what's
going on than the game." Unlike football, you just watch
the game. It gets a little boring. I recently went to a cage
fight that had fantastic fighters, but I'll be honest with you,
I was bored. You sit in a chair for five hours. It gets a little
boring, but if you have several MC's that have a certain job
to entertain the crowd. For example, I have one MC that is very
structured, "in the right corner, in the left corner."
Then, I have another MC that gets the crowd involved and educates
the crowd on what's going on and then I have another MC that's
a cheerleader and they just switch. They're on corners and they
just look at each other, he takes over and the crowd just goes
berserk. Our crowd gets in to it, I mean, through the entire
show and we also play music during our fights, while the fighters
are fighting. So, it's a little bit different.
FCF: Do you find that the
music distracts the fighters or do any fighters say that the
music distracts them in anyway?
RS: Actually, you would think it would, but the reaction that
we got from a lot of fighters, it actually motivates them. It's
kind of like when you're running and you have headphones on and
you hear, maybe Rocky or something, you run harder and that's
the same thing they feel. Unfortunately, as a promoter, my number
one priority is to take care of the fighters, but I also have
to take care of the crowd. That means I have to entertain them,
but what I mean by that is, if they are on the ground too long
and there's no movement or any forward progress, even though
if it's my student and he's a grappler, he's loves it to be on
the ground, I still have to entertain the crowd a little bit.
Unfortunately, it's like a fine line, but in order for this
sport to grow, you also got to make the crowd happy and I listen
to the crowd. The crowd will let me know what they want. I'll
override it for a little while, but the crowd keep persisting,
I'll go, "bring them back up."
FCF: So you referee all
your events?
RS: No no, I don't referee the events. I am one of the MC's.
Again, I was an MC in the entertainment world so I'm what you
would call a cheerleader. I get the crowd going. I follow the
fight so depending on what's going on in the fight is how my
voice level changes. I watch the crowd so I'm kind of going
up and down. I just kind of watch and get in to it. I put my
mind in to the crowd's mind when their heartbeat raises up, I
go higher and I pick up the music. I go "uhhhhh" [voice
raise in pitch, we both laugh].
FCF: Where do you find most
of your fighters? In the Phoenix and Tempe area or out of state?
RS: Right now because legally we are not allowed to pay any fighters.
By that, it pretty much tells you where our budget stands and
even if we were able to pay fighters, we're in a position that
we just don't have the money so what we do is, I have half the
battle won because half of my guys are always fighting so I go
around and call other academies or I put an ad in the paper and
that's basically how I find my fighters. I would say 90% of
my fighters come out of Phoenix and a little out of Tuscan, but
until lately, we're beginning to get a couple of them from California
now. Recently, we had Todd Medina [Carlson Gracie Fight Team]
and we also had the Shark Tank and Tedd Williams Combat Team.
We've actually had pretty decent talent through the Rage in
the Cage. We've had Ricco Rodrigues fight twice, Joe Pardo,
Christophe Leninger. We had Stevenson, Orlando McKee. For the
level of the show, as far as talent, we've actually had some
decent talent come through and it seems like it's getting better
and better and better. We just need to get some Hawaiians now
[both laughs]. Actually, I have two students that are Hawaiian.
FCF: How do you match up
fighters when you do not know their background without over matching
each fighter?
RS: That's the hardest part because our event is Saturday night
and I only have roughly three to four hours to decide who's going
to be matched. I pretty much sit down individually and interview
them, get a little background on them. Depending on their background
and their physical structure so it can be a good well balanced
fight; that isn't too boring. Sometimes when you put two guys
that are technical, like say two Jiu-Jitsu players, unfortunately,
I mean me as a Jiu-Jitsu player, I love it, but the crowd doesn't
so I kind of try to match them up. If I got two street fighters
that look like Hulk Hogan, I put them together because the crowd
like it. The crowd
it's going to sound bizarre what I'm
going to say, but the crowd like those junkyard dog guys, you
know body slamming, no technique. It seems like the less technique
they have, the more the crowd gets in to it, but until the last
six months, it seems to be changing though. It's a good following
so they are beginning to understand what an arm bar or a triangle
is so they are actually beginning to veer towards the technician
a little bit more now. I would say 70/30 they still like the
junkyard dogs.
FCF: So it's up to you to
match up your fighters with only two to three hours before the
event?
RS: Actually [laughs], believe it or not, I can do it within
thirty minutes and you're looking at close to fifty fighters
sometimes. I'll just look at the guy, put some things down,
go in to a room by myself. Occasionally, I'll have a pre-set
fight. I would say 99% of the time, I set up the fights the
day of the event.
FCF: Do you have any trouble
with the fighters because they have no idea of who they will
fight?
RS: As far as they being unhappy and notifying me, they seldom.
They pretty much know the deal. I tell them over the phone.
I told fighters that have fought in the past, "You will
not know your fight until maybe half an hour before the event."
The ones that fought for me before will call me and say, "Roland,
I want to fight that one guy." Other than that, when you
show up, you really don't know who you are going to fight. It
can be pretty scary. I try to pair the guys up by experience.
A lot of times if the guy tells you he's this and this and that,
you don't know if he's telling you the truth or not so that's
another judgment. I go by feel. I feel the guy out. I look
at the way he carries his voice and his body and that's pretty
much how I go. So far, I think I've done a fairly good job.
As you know, you can't always be perfect so you are always going
to have one or two guys go, "You set me up with this guy."
My attitude is, when you come to fight, that's the chance you
take. I try to be as fair as I can because as a promoter, the
last thing I want to do is lose the trust of the fighters because
once they don't trust me, I will lose and that means they are
not going to come back and fight for my event again. For example,
if there are two fighters and they are uneven and I know that,
I will come up to the fighter that isn't as talented and say
you can pull out right now if you want, but unfortunately, we
don't have a guy for you and you fell in to this fighter. I'm
letting you know he's this and that and that. You can pull out.
It's not that big of a deal. I would say 99.9% of the time,
they still follow up on it and they do continue fighting.
FCF: As far as your students,
do you have a requirement before you let them step in the ring?
RS: Yeah, I pretty much give them three months before they get
in to the ring. I don't know if I'm smart or dumb when it comes
to this subject. I believe why train and train and train for
a fight, you're never going to have? You just can't substitute
live fighting for practice fighting. Most of my guys within
three months, there's no questions asked, they fight. I pretty
much come up to them and say, "You ready to fight?"
and 99.9, they always say, "Yup," but I'm not going
to set them up with somebody who is very experienced. Our school
is pretty friendly, our only requirement here is if you have
an attitude, you cannot train here and you have to leave, especially
if you come here and try to hurt people. That's just something
we don't tolerate here. Win or lose, we don't take it personal.
Myself, I don't ever, ever yell at my guys when they lose because
to me he's a champion being in the ring. Especially me that
has never fought, who am I to yell at a guy who got in the ring
and gave it all he had, but yet I've never been in there. Other
than if he quits because he is tired, I would say that is the
only thing that bothers me.
FCF: You have just stated
that you haven't fought yet. Is there any reason why being such
a successful promoter and producer of many fighters?
RS: I'll be up front with you. The reason I don't fight, obviously,
is because of my ego. I'm afraid to lose. I'm afraid that if
I lose, will I be the same person that I think I am and what
are people going to think of me? That's the main reason I don't
fight. I'm not afraid of anybody. I'm more afraid of me. How
am I going to deal with it and that's the problem I'm having
with myself. The biggest reason in the past why I didn't get
in to it was because I was in the entertainment business. I
worked at clubs with male dancers and you know, my face and stuff
played a big role, but now I don't do that anymore. I'm afraid
of the unknown, but I'm not what you call a premeditated fighter.
Somebody can't come up to me and say, "You'll be fighting
in two weeks." I'm the type if I walk outside and somebody
slaps me, I'll go. I know my destiny is to fight. I'll probably
fight when I'm forty, when I wake up [laughs]. I walk around
at 195, but I think my fighting weight is about 170. I really
think it's going to be really tough to beat me at 170, especially
in cage fighting. I'm actually thinking about doing it this
Saturday. I don't know we'll see. I've been saying this for
five years [laughs].
FCF: How much do you and
your students practice inside a cage since you don't have a cage
in your school?
RS: Actually, we don't practice in a cage. We practice on a
grappling mat. My guys train roughly four to six days a week.
We have a different style than most people as far as cage fighting.
We seldom ever train full speed. What I mean is full speed
to the face and body. We actually go 40% of fighting to the
head and body. We always wear head gear when it comes to the
face. We go open hands to the face. When we spar with the kicking,
we go nice and easy because we fight so much, in my personal
opinion, there is no reason why these guys should really kill
each other in practice. My past experience is every time we
try to do that, they get hurt. We just tone it down to the point
where everything we do is just repetitious. I tell the guys
we are just going to play a basic game. Forget all the training
tapes. Forget all that gi stuff. That's not going to work in
the cage fight. This is how we're going to pass the guard in
three moves. This is how we're going to side mount three moves.
Just master these moves. Do it for three years and then go
to the next level. We keep it really simple and don't put a
lot of pressure on the fighters. I believe our fighters are
the busiest fighters in the country. We fight twice a month
practically. Sometimes the guys fight twice a night. It depends.
Our conditioning is unbelievable. I kind of follow the Matt
Furey system, a lot of strength conditioning. I guess with my
background, I believe power plays a big role. I don't mean power,
but conditioning strength so the muscles don't get fatigued.
FCF: Do you accent your
training by bringing in other trainers such as boxers or kick
boxers?
RS: I've been real fortunate to have a kick boxing instructor
that teaches twice a week and we have several college wrestlers
from ASU [Arizona State University] area that train the takedowns.
We also have a black belt that teaches Judo so I still believe
that 80% of the fight is still the ground so we do specialize
on the ground, but as far as the other areas, we basically touch
the surface of it, not to the point that we are going to enter
a Judo tournament or a kick boxing tournament just so we know
what the opponents are going to do to us.
FCF: Do you think you can
take your event to the next level without financial backing?
RS: It's going to take a little longer, but obviously. I would
love to do a show like King of the Cage with those fantastic
great athletes out there, but I just don't have the financing
and I'm not allowed to give out money, but I'm in the process
of making this show a pro-show. I believe that I'm two to five
years away from taking it to the next level. I'm beginning to
pick up some momentum now because I've got the best venue in
the state. I've got a beautiful arena. You've got to see it
to believe it. It holds about 2800 people.
FCF: Let's go over the laws
in Arizona because you said that you can't give out money for
your fights.
RS: Technically, it's an amateur event so I'm not allowed to
give out any trophies, any medals, or any money. It makes it
real difficult to get some quality talent, other than people
doing favors.
FCF: What do you have to
do to make this a professional event?
RS: Have the boxing commission accept it and some of the politicians.
I can do it at the casinos if I wanted to probably, but I'm
kind of hoping I can keep it inside the city. [I] just have
to take care of a couple issues and then we'll have a pro show.
Actually, our reputation for what we do, we probably have one
of the better reputations in the state. We actually have nothing,
but positive feedback through advertising in magazines and TV.
We have had positive reviews. That's why the boxing commissions
and other people leave us alone because we run a real tight ship,
a real professional show.
FCF: Thank you. |