It's a pretty cool accomplishment to be a world champion and barely be a teenager.
TMJ4's Lance Allan introduces us to a Greenfield middle schooler who trains at Roufusport and can already make that claim.
For Gio Rodriguez, he watched MMA at age 6. Less than two years later...
"Around 8 years old, I would beg my dad to start fighting," Rodriguez says. "He wanted me to be a baseball player. I just saw fighting and I knew immediately I wanted to do this."
He began competing at age 11.
"I started training with some of like the best kids at my age," Rodriguez says. "As soon as I realized, 'oh, I could compete with these kids,' I was like I could probably compete at an amateur youth level."
And then he won a world title at age 13.
When asked if he expected to win the world championship...
"Yes," Rodriguez says with confidence. "I was 100 percent sure I was going to win."
He said he began crying with excitement.
"It was amazing," he said.
Now, the sky is the limit.
"I wanna be a professional fighter," Rodriguez says. "A world champion at the professional level."
Yet still be a teenager.
"I'm just a normal kid who can fight," Rodriguez says. "That's it."
Gio's full first name is DiMaggio, named after his father's love for baseball. Clearly, Rodriguez's first love is MMA and so far that choice is already paying dividends in his young career.
Locally, Gio Rodriguez will fight in the North American Fighting Championship (NAFC) on Dec. 16 at the Waukesha County Expo Center.
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