Greg Rebello
By the time he was 21, Greg Rebello could tell that his hockey career was coming to an end.
It had been part of his life since a very young age while living on Cape Cod in Massachusetts. He had moved from a very strong high school team to the U.S. junior leagues, but he knew hockey wouldn’t be his future.
Still wanting to compete, Rebello started some martial-arts training with a friend. It was about 10 years ago, when the options weren’t nearly as robust as they are now. His hockey gear went into the closet, and Rebello started learning a sport with more one-on-one competition than he was used to.
“There wasn’t any amateur to do, so I had to go pro right away,” Rebello told MMAjunkie. “That didn’t come until four or five years later.”
That underlines how long Rebello has been a member of this sport, but he’s feeling fresh in his legs and like he still has a lot in front of him. He gets his next chance to prove that on Oct. 30, when the Rhode Island resident who has compiled an 18-6 record faces Mike Mucitelli (7-2) at CES MMA 31 in Lincoln, R.I. The event airs on AXS TV.
Riding consecutive victories, Rebello has come a long way since he made his fighting debut in February 2005. In that time, he has worked as a bartender on the weekends to make enough to train during the week and then, later, transitioned to teaching and training full-time.
He has witnessed firsthand the explosion of MMA and the major increase in the number of fighting opportunities that came with it. Now he’s hoping to take advantage of more of those opportunities himself, which he feels strong in pursuing because he started the sport too late in life to be tired of it.
“There aren’t many guys I started with who are still doing it because of a lot of them had kids and they’re rockin’ the dad bods,” Rebello said. “A lot of guys got burnt out because they had done wrestling before fighting.
“I’m 33, and I don’t have a lot of wear and tear. I think that’s a big reason I’m still around, and I know I still have a lot in front of me.”
Growing up in a vacation town
Rebello grew up in a place where most people just go to vacation.
He was born and raised in Cape Cod, which turned from a tourist destination in the summer to a ghost town in the winter. The five-minute trip to the local gym where he played hockey ballooned to 45 minutes because of traffic during the busy seasons.
Hockey was part of the personality of the area, so it was obvious Rebello would get involved. His father had become a referee after he moved to the area to work on planes at the nearby Otis National Guard Base. He there met Rebello’s mother, who was from Cape Cod, and together they raised Rebello in the tenants of northeastern U.S. sporting passions.
He got exposure to big-time players who would come through his area to train. From a young age, he saw how professional athletes prepared, trained and even ate to be at their best.
He played on a stellar high school team and then joined the junior leagues, but he knew hockey wasn’t part of his long-term future.
“To be honest, you know if you’re doing to be a pro player,” he said. “Guys in the NHL now knew when they were 15 that was going to happen for them someday. I just loved playing.”
That’s why it wasn’t a shock to him as he got to be 20 and then 21 that his competitive hockey career was closing down. A friend, Pat Schultz, who would later appear on “The Ultimate Fighter,” was interested in trying martial arts and MMA, and Rebello was equally intrigued.
When they chose a gym, they started slowly. He saw the individual satisfaction that was so different from hockey, and he gravitated toward it.
“Hockey is a sport you do with four or five other guys with you, and (MMA) is a selfish sport in a lot of ways,” he said. “I had to get used to that.”
Coming on strong
There were no amateur options when Rebello took his first fight, in February 2005. And even though he had been a hockey player for most of his life, he was as nervous as he had ever been.
“I had a lot of friends and family there, but it was different than when they watched me play hockey,” he said. “I was fighting this guy who was just scary-looking, with tattoos on his face and the whole thing. I didn’t know what to expect.
“I had never been so scared in my life.”
But Rebello won that debut before starting 1-2 and then going on an 11-fight winning streak from August 2006 to December 2010. During that time, he was bartending on the weekends at a place that helped him make enough money to train during the week.
Asked about the ease of building a long-lasting career now compared to his early days, Rebello said many more fighters now are set up for longer careers.
“Let’s say it’s 2005 and you get to the UFC and go 0-2 and they cut you. Where did you go?” he said. “Now there are so many promotions that if you’ve had even a decent career you can keep getting fights.”
Likewise, Rebello built his career, though he went through a tough stretch, going 4-4 before his last two consecutive wins set his current record at 18-6. He feels fresh in his legs, and he likes how his training is going. He has plenty of experience, which he hopes to translate into a win on Oct. 30.
“I think I’m in my prime,” he said. “With another knockout, I would have a good opportunity to get into a bigger show. So even though I’ve been doing this for awhile, I think I’m headed in the right direction.”
Catching up
Last week, Chazz Walton told us about starting his MMA training as a way to prepare for possibly joining the military after he figured out that a college path wasn’t for him. But he loved the sport, so he stuck with it. After scoring a seven-second knockout in his previous fight – in front of UFC President Dana White, no less – Walton improved to 3-0 last weekend with a victory against Joshua Millwood at Legacy FC 47.
Award-winning newspaper reporter Kyle Nagel pens “Fight Path” each week. The column focuses on the circumstances that led fighters to a profession in MMA. Know a fighter with an interesting story? Email us at news [at] mmajunkie.com.
