Wednesday, December 28, 2011

Dramatis Personae: K-Rod

If ever I had the urge to pack a fat bong with herb and smoke up, without question the first person I'd pass it to after puffing large would be K-Rod. Known as "Kevin Roddy" to those who keep official records or write stuffy articles on Northeast MMA shows, K-Rod has been a fixture in the local circuit since about 2005 - and with his jiu-jitsu (courtesy of Kurt Pellegrino) and tight guard game, he was, for a spell, one the top five lightweights in the area (his contemporaries were Frankie Edgar, Jim Miller and Deividas Taurosevicius, which says a lot about his skills).

Covered in tattoos, skinny as fuck but game as hell, and one of the coolest dudes you will ever meet, K-Rod still gets into the cage every now and then. This year he was on a Strikeforce undercard, last year he lost a decision to Dennis Bermudez (yes, the TUF 15 runner-up) at an M-1 Global show, and a couple years back he fought on an Indian reservation in Upstate New York in a venue that was a cigarette factory by day (according to him, the joint reeked of tobacco so bad, he just wanted to get paid and get out). He was even the Battle Cage Xtreme champ back when BCX was cranking out shows.

Nowadays, because of his propensity for hunting for subs from the bottom, K-Rod is losing decisions more than he's catching opponents in armbars and triangles. But that's okay. He's there to fight, and if he's at an event and not there to fight, it means he's there to have a good time. And really, there's nothing wrong with that, either.