George Roop: Past, Present and Future

Tucson’s very own George Roop, better known as TUF season 8 semifinalist, recently went toe-to-toe with wrestler Diamond Dave Kaplan in the opening fight of UFC 98 and came out the victor. He is itching to take the lightweight division by storm, and took the time out to answer some of my questions.

Since your fight wasn’t aired, can you give a play-by-play for people who didn’t see it?

It was a very close fight. Well, in the first round I came out and just tried to use my distance, and it was a good stand-up war, the whole first round. I won every exchange and got some good punches in. He got some good inside leg kicks that he started timing me with about halfway through the first round. I was just eating the leg kicks and countering with 5-2′s and 3-2′s and 1-2s. And in the second round, we came out and he took me down off of a flying knee I’d thrown and just missed with, and I ended up on my back. Nothing really happened; I hit him with a couple upkicks and got back to the feet after fifteen seconds of being on the ground. He took me down two times after that, same thing. It was a good stand-up war. And I won that round 10-9 as well. And in the third round we had a couple of exchanges and he took me down once again. I got back to my feet and we fought it out the rest of the round. It was a very close fight; I won by split decision.

Who do you want to fight next?

I really don’t have a preference, but I know i don’t want to fight anybody from The Ultimate Fighter show next, just because I’ve had a couple fights with those guys already and I’m just looking to test my talent in the lightweight division.

So you don’t want to call out Junie?

No, because I’ll actually be training with Junie at Xtreme Couture, so we already know that fight isn’t gonna happen. And if it was, I’d come back to Tucson to finish my training camp and go there and proceed to beat him up.

So you haven’t even gone over other people you want to fight in your mind?

Not really. I want to fight whoever the fans want to see me fight, and whoever the fans want to see get knocked out, really.

Tell us about your tattoo.

My recent tattoo I got was before my fight, a half-a-sleeve on my arm. I went up to my buddy at 444 tattoo; he’s a real good artist and I told him I wanted something kind of evil looking on my arm and he hooked me up with some pretty evil stuff.

I was thinking about the Dopey tattoo; is there a story behind that?

The tattoo on my stomach I got when I was 15 yrs old. It was a different life, another life ago. It used to be my nickname when I was young, when I was in a gang. I got into a lot of trouble because of the group of people I hung out with. I got picked on all through out elementary school. I think I just felt like I had something to prove. When I turned 18, I decided to change my life and got away from that whole crowd. And I don’t really regret anything that I’ve ever done in life. That part of my life is what made me the warrior I am today. It has also made me even more importantly a better and more well rounded father and person… I’ve changed a lot since then.

So what’s next for you in your training?

I’ll be training with Frank Mir in Vegas, again, jiu jitsu under Mir and Robert Drysdale and I’ll be in Extreme Couture under Sean Tompkins.

Check out George Roop’s website!