Raul
Rosas Jr. recently reflected on his relationship with late
coach and teammate, Trevor Cooper.
Rosas Jr. (9-1) picked up a second-round submission of Ricky
Turcios at
UFC on ESPN 57 on June 8. “El Nino Problema” dedicated the win
to Cooper, who passed away in April.
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Cooper was Rosas Jr.’s teammate at 10th Planet Jiu Jitsu in Las
Vegas when the Mexican suffered his lone career loss against
Christian
Rodriguez at UFC 287 in April 2023. According to Rosas Jr., it
was Cooper who contributed the most in identifying his mistakes
from that loss and correcting them. Rosas Jr., who has earned 6 of
his 9 career wins via submission, fondly admits that Cooper could
submit him 10 times within a couple of minutes. Cooper, who also
believed in Rosas Jr., had predicted an easy outing for the Mexican
against Turcios, unlike the rest of their gym. Rosas Jr., 19, said
on The MMA Hour:
“He meant a lot to me, he was like my brother, like my coach,”
Rosas Jr. said on the MMA Hour. “He believed in me a lot. He is the
one that helped me the most to correct when I lost to Christian
Rodriguez. He wasn’t in my corner but he saw the fight. And then he
started training me and he corrected every single mistake, every
single detail, even mistakes that I didn’t realize, he realized.
And that’s how he made me [a] much better fighter. He could tap me
10 times in like two minutes. Everybody just knew he was freak in
jiu-jitsu; he was so smart. And then he passed away. Even when he
was alive and I got the fight against Rickly Turcios and everybody
here was saying that it was going to be a tough fight, war and this
and that. And he was like, ‘Oh it’s another easy fight like the
Terence Mitchell fight.’”
Cooper once made headlines by choking out a man nearly twice his
size right outside 10th Planet Jiu Jitsu. Cooper was found dead
this past April at a townhome in Henderson, Nevada, after a days’
long standoff with law enforcement. Police had initially tried to
serve Cooper a warrant on charges of kidnapping, battery and
administering drugs. The jiu-jitsu specialist opened fire on a SWAT
team who returned fire but nobody was injured. The police entered
the house after nearly a two-day barricade, to find Cooper dead due
to a drug overdose.