This passed Wednesday evening, February 24th, Coach Kurt Pellegrino promoted 17 students along side his mentor and BJJ blackbelt Rob Scheier and fellow training partner, former WEC champion and BJJ Blackbelt, Miguel Torres.

The night was especially monumental as Coach Kurt awarded his first ever BJJ blackbelt to the more than deserving, Coach Kevin Roddy. Kevin has trained under Coach Kurt for more than 7 years and has always been a sincerely loyal and dedicated student and friend. So a huge congratulations goes out to the academy's FIRST EVER BJJ blackbelt, Kevin Roddy! Kevin assists in the evening advanced BJJ classes, so now the class will be taught by TWO blackbelts. Kevin also teaches his own BJJ classes on Tuesday & Thursday mornings at 10am, so get yourself in the blackbelt's classes!

Here is the complete list of newly promoted students, who's hard work and dedication to training is paying off!

GREEN BELTS:
Joe Andujar
Yavuz Eriske
Jeff Amendola
Ismael Garcia
Darryn Kupratis
Matt Salisbury
Chris Rahmano

BLUE BELTS:
Craig Thieme
Timmy Hands
Gus "The Bus" Brandstetter
Mike Lui

PURPLE BELTS:
Brain Satcher
Lester Caslow

BROWN BELTS:
Justin Haskins
David Church
Gregory Soto

BLACK BELT:
Coach Kevin Roddy

*Pictured is Coach Kurt with newly promoted Coach Kevin Roddy. Check out the photo galleries for more pictures of the promotion ceremony.

CONGRATULATIONS TO THE TEAM!

Tonight there will be NO classes due to the snow, once again. We will be having an open mat time from until 5pm to 630pm for those of you that live close enough to make it to the academy safely.

Our first promotion ceremony of 2010 will take place on Wednesday February 24th at 7pm. For all those that are being promoted, please see the front desk if you havent done so already. Everyone is welcome to attend.

It will be a great night!

This past Friday night at The Ring of Combat our guys put on a great show! Craig Theime made his pro MMA debut vs Adam Fearon of AMA fight team and won a majority decision. Lester Caslow took on undefeated Andy Main from AMA and also won a unanimous decision. Although he looked great in round one, Justin Haskins came up short in his title fight vs Ryan LaFlare.

The guys showed great heart and determination! Congrats to everyone!

This weekend Gary Roberts is making his MMA ameteur debut at Asylum Fights at the Trump Marina in Atlantic City. Best of luck to Gary!

We had a very special guest visit us this past week at the academy! The former WBO junior welterweight champ, Miguel Cotto was in from Puerto Rico to train with Coach Kurt for his upcoming fight at UFC 111 on March 27th. It was a pleasure to have the champ here. We look forward to having him back and wish him the best of luck as he gets back in the ring on June 12th of this year!

Also training here for the month of February is the former WEC bantamweight champ, Miguel Torres! Miguel and Kurt are both training for big fights. Miguel will look to get back in title contention when he takes on Joseph Benavidez on March 6th (on Verses network)

Due to the terrible road conditions and downed power lines in Belmar and the lack of any real parking, we are cancelling the kids class for tonight. There will be an open mat from 6pm to 7pm for those of you that live close enough to come. We do not recommend traveling on the roads tonight. We are hoping the road conditions will improve for tomorrow.

Classes will definitely resume on Friday evening at 530pm for the Beginner BJJ students.

Due to the impending snow storm, the academy will have the following schedule:

Today, Tuesday Feb 9th - OPEN, regular class schedule
Wednesday, Feb 10th - CLOSED
Thursday, Feb 11th - OPEN, regular class schedule

We are sorry for the inconvenience, and hope this is the last snow storm of the season!!

Stay Safe!

Due to the impending snow storm the academy will be CLOSED tomorrow morning, Saturday February 6th. Thus, our 1st annual BJJ tourney will be postponed until next Saturday, February 13th at 10am. So many students have signed up, it will be a great day!

Enjoy the snow weekend!

Pellegrino MMA is starting 2010 off with a bang!! We'd like to welcome the following new students to our mixed martial arts family! We are grateful you have decided to become apart of our growing academy.

Tyler Golightly
Yavuz Eriske
David Smith
Thomas Khobel
Michael Ferrando
Robert DeWaters
Kent Sullivan
Justin Colecchio
Kyle Burdge
Michael Marco
Chris Noto
Josefino Cisneros
Chris Sobolewski
David Ippolito
Tom Hannigan
George Sullivan
Connor Albrecht
Steve Mazza
Ray Murray
Anthony Rutkowski
Edwardo Alvarado
Paul LaPlaca
Nicholas Mandikas
Keith French