Issue 166

April 2018

One of the world’s top coaches lifts the lid on how he helps to create champions.

Jeffrey Ryan Roufus has been ‘Duke’ since he came home from the hospital as a baby. His dad was so proud of him, he carried him around like an American football. Back then, there was a football made by the Wilson company called The Duke. The name stuck.

The head coach of Roufusport is an extraordinary character. He considers himself a martial artist first and foremost, but also a mentor and a coach.

Once a brutal fighter himself, his relationship with his charges goes deep. He has been a father-figure to Anthony and Sergio Pettis, and has grown close to Tyron Woodley, the current UFC welterweight champion, as well as fan-favorite turned analyst Paul Felder. There are so many others, too – Ben Askren, Pat Barry, even CM Punk.

He prides himself on creating a deep bond with the spirits and souls he trains at Roufusport, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

He’s a lover of the art of mixed martial arts, who values emotional intelligence as much as physical ability in the cage. He also has a love and respect for his fighters. That, combined with his diligence as a trainer and teacher has helped to create world champions and develop one of the most respected teams in mixed martial arts…

Did martial arts come easily?

I was a mixed bag when I started. I liked training a lot. I would say don’t compete that young, if that makes sense. From age six to 12 I’d go to tournaments and have very mixed results.

I’d cry a lot, get upset because I lost. The most fun part of the tournaments when I was a kid was seeing my friends and playing with them after our divisions were over. Not until I was 13 did I really get into it.

I liked training, I just didn’t like competing. It’s very stressful. I think your desire wears out. The younger you start competing, the faster you burn out.

Getting a little more serious as I got older helped me have longevity.

Did hardships early in life shape you as a fighter and coach?

I found my sister dead when I was 15. She died of sudden death syndrome. It was a pretty traumatic experience. I was just lost… I just couldn’t find myself. At the same time, my brother had just won his first world title when I was 16. I was starting to be one of my brother’s sparring partners and it was the best feeling I’d felt in a while. I got a little roughed up by my brother sometimes, but it was better than the other feeling I had. It was a kind of therapy.

That’s why Anthony Pettis and I have a special bond. The situation he went through with his father, I had gone through a similar situation with my sister.

I think combat sports and martial arts are a great way to combat emotional scar tissue and that’s when all the magic started happening for me and life got a little easier.

Do you think fighters ‘fight’ as some kind of therapy?

I think they all have their situations or their demons or things that haunt them.

In society, sometimes we don’t grow up the way we’d like to grow up.

Whether it’s first world problems or third world problems, they are problems emotionally. It’s a great way to deal with those problems.

How do you go about working with fighters?

When I create a relationship with a new fighter our time isn’t spent training so much; we socialize a lot. I want to find out what makes them tick and know what I’m going to whisper in their ear the last second before they walk up those steps and into the Octagon.

For some people, say Anthony, I can bring up his father [who was murdered when he was 16] before the fight and it brings motivation. Sergio was a little younger when that happened, so I would cloud Sergio’s vision if I brought this up. You have to really get to know the guys.

How did working with Tyron Woodley become one of your big success stories?

Tyron is incredible – so coachable. He’s a great strategist and we work well together. In fact, I’m doing that more with other teams, other coaches.

I did it recently with Sarah Kaufman in Invicta, and see myself doing more of that as time goes on – joining other teams for certain fights as a consultant. It’s very rewarding.

How did you react to the flak for the way in which Tyron defended the title against Demian Maia and Stephen Thompson?

The game plan for Tyron’s fight with Demian Maia was more game plan than anything else. I know he took a lot of criticism for being boring but a friend of mine, Greg Jackson, one of the leading guru guys in our industry, complimented us on how well we did with that game plan. I feel like this is a stage in the sport where I need to accept that. It’s not brute force that wins every fight. You’ve got to have great fight IQ, great spirituality in the ring.

How do you go about matching skills with upcoming opponents?

With Tyron, we can broaden our philosophy on a fight… Look, 25 minutes in the UFC cage is a very long fight. People need to understand that. To keep your nerve, be patient and disciplined takes a huge amount of planning and mental strength.

People don’t give Tyron enough credit for that. Of course we want to win by KO – Tyron is that type of fighter – but it’s not always on the cards. You slow down the onslaught, you control the fight. It takes an incredible will to win, and Tyron has that in droves.

What else has made him into a champion?

He is also incredibly tough. He is able to go through such pain, and his will to win allows him to do that. For example, he broke his fist against Kelvin Gastelum and there was not a complaint.

He didn’t even tell us in the corner during the fight. He tore his shoulder against Maia, and there was not so much as a yelp or complaint. These are rare qualities in a human being – in a fighter. The key to Tyron is that he knows psychologically how to deal with adversity and pain. It comes from his very tough upbringing, allied with what he went through in American wrestling culture.

He has embraced the grind in his entire life. He has a very deep ability to suffer. You need that to be a great fighter. He’s a special human being.

How much did your kickboxing career shape your career as a coach?

That’s why I have the connection I do with my fighters… I had a decent career as a fighter, some ups and downs. But I always knew I was going to be a coach. I’ve been teaching martial arts since I was 16.

I was helping fighters and in my brother’s corner at 18. I just had a natural knack. The way my mind works, I see things. Fighting for me was a validation, so I had the credentials to be a great coach. I always knew I would train world champions. I was able to make it to K-1 and beat the great Stan ‘The Man’ Longinidis for my first world title in kickboxing. There were many fighting highlights, but coaching was for me.

What lessons did you learn from fighting at such a high level?

I had some comebacks from retirement. The mentality you have to have to be a fighter is mean, and it took me a while to learn this. It’s the complete polar opposite you need to be a great coach. Once I figured that out, and got rid of my fighting persona and adopted my coaching persona, I’ve had such smooth sailing in life and in coaching.

The problem is when you go away from fighting you become softer and human. It’s only natural. When you go back to it, you have to be animalistic again and you have to turn yourself into someone you used to be.

Sometimes that’s not good for us. The reason why we don’t fight any more is because we’ve evolved, or changed. Your life changes and you have to accept that sometimes.

Is there a realization then that you’ve changed, matured, that you become different?

I joke all the time with my buddy CM Punk, and I am buddies with [actor] Mickey Rourke… Everyone does it for different reasons.

Is it a means to make money? Is it a means to feel good again? Do you love to compete? For me, that’s the hardest thing. Everyone thinks they’ve got one left in them. I see it’s addictive. There’s no better rush than getting into the ring and fighting someone. It’s the greatest feeling. I’ve submitted someone in a jiu-jitsu tournament and that’s a great feeling but the best feeling is knocking someone out.

Not because I want to hurt or destroy them, but because there’s something primal about dominating another human being. It is a hard, hard thing to give up.

Do you go along with what Nick Diaz says – that you’ve got to hate this to love it?

It’s the truth. They say the blues is a good man feeling bad. I think fighting is a sports blues. A lot of manic people choose fighting. I don’t have a lot of athletic friends.

All my friends are into music and film, stuff that’s a lot more manic than say team sports. Every fighter I train is brilliant, but there’s some unique and neurotic behavior. Each guy I train has some unique behavior that makes them crazy. That’s what it takes. There’s got to be a little bit of crazy to get in and do what we do.

Judging by your Instagram account, you’re still very active in the gym with your fighters. Do guys like Woodley and Pettis do damage to you even when you’re padded up?

I can’t do what I once did. I still spar with my guys. They’re very respectful athletes, they don’t go hard on me.

If they wanted to take me out, they could take me out with physicality! They prefer to try and use my experience and knowledge.

Round numbers

• 36-8-1: Pro Kickboxing record as a super heavyweight.
• 72% Proportion of wins to come via knockout or TKO.
• 1,343: Days between ‘retirement’ in 2001 before returning for three more fights from 2005-08.
• 2: World titles (WEC & UFC) won by Anthony Pettis under Roufus’ tutelage.