Louis Neglia - Ring of Combat

Ring of Combat..by the numbers is among the elite promotions in the sport

When you buy a ticket to a regional mixed martial arts (MMA) event, you’re probably going to support a local fighter that you may know, or you love the action and are looking for a fun night out.  Perhaps you may get to see the next big star and UFC world champion as he is earning his way through the ranks.  If you are lucky, you may get to see a couple of mixed martial artists who will go on to the larger promotions and see them on ESPN or pay-per-view.  If you’ve been to a Ring of Combat show, the chance of seeing that man or woman who will be among the elite sooner or later, increases exponentially.

Louis Neglia is a former world kickboxing champion and decided to begin to promote his own brand of cage-fighting with his first event on October 10, 2002.  It was held at the Mohegan Sun in Connecticut.  Afterwards he moved his cards to a spot in North Jersey as he continued to build his brand.  At ROC 10 on April 14, 2006, Neglia took up partnership with the Tropicana Hotel and Casino Resort in Atlantic City, New Jersey.  He has never looked back and has become a pioneer in the sport.  Neglia’s many connections in New York, Pennsylvania and New Jersey have enabled the respected Neglia to draw from a large pool of talent and put on quality show after quality show.

At ROC 47 on January 24, 2014, if you happened to attend, you would have seen nine future UFC fighters and a TUF competitor.  This is unheard of at any show that I can ever recall.  Chris Wade, Julio Arce, Keith Berish, Frankie Perez, Mike Santiago, Merab Dvalishvili, Oluwale Bamgbose, Allen Crowder and Gregor Gillespie all entered the ROC cage that night and all eventually made it to the largest MMA promotion in the world.  Over the last 19 years, Ring of Combat has made a huge impact and has provided a forum for a multitude of mixed martial artists to improve and fight for their goals of reaching the pinnacle of the sport.

That pleases Neglia like nothing else. Many of his alumni remain “family” to him.  Neglia is also very humble and wanted to reiterate that he is not taking credit for getting these fighters to the big dance. He is just happy to help these warriors in any way possible. He spoke about their hard work, time away from their family, and other hardships that they face. He told MyMMANews…

I want all of my fighters to get bigger opportunities and go to the UFC, Bellator, wherever they can follow their dreams to try and become world champions.  It’s our passion. Dana White has been to a bunch of our shows and I speak to him on the phone and am always encouraging him to sign our champions and many of the great fighters that come through our cage.  I would never hold anyone back.  If they had a fight with me, and the UFC called, no questions asked. I would tell them to tear up our contract and go win your fight. We have three more fighters heading to The Contender Series in the next couple of months.”

The list below represents any fighters who have fought at Ring of Combat sometime earlier in their career and then eventually signed with a larger promotion.  They all share the fact that they are alumni of ROC.  While a large majority of them went directly, there are also others who competed at other regional promotions before earning their contract with the bigger shows.

Neglia say as soon as he gets the “okay” from the State, he will immediately host his next event (tentatively scheduled for September 26) and promises to have a loaded card once again at the Tropicana Hotel and Casino Resort in Atlantic City, NJ.  There are a ton of hungry fighters who cannot wait to get back to work and I’m sure we will see more of the best talent on the east coast with multiple titles on the line.

List of Ring of Combat fighters who signed to bigger promotions:

1 Frankie Edgar      UFC                                                                                 

2 Eddie Alvarez UFC, Bellator, ONE Championship                                                   

3 Chris Weidman     UFC                                  

4 Matt Serra           UFC                                                                                  

5 Pete Sell       TUF,   UFC                                                                           

6 Luke Cummo     UFC                                                           

7 Josh Koscheck     UFC                                                                               

8 Jay Hieron UFC, Bellator, WEC                                                                       

9 Kurt Pellegrino  UFC, Bellator                                                              

10 Aljamain Sterling   UFC

11 Lyman Good  Bellator, UFC                                                  

12 Mike Massenzio   UFC                                                                            

13 Phillipe Nover TUF, Bellator, UFC                                             

14 Gregor Gillespie   UFC                                                                      

15 Ian Loveland        UFC                                                                          

16 Charlie Brenneman   UFC                                                                       

17 Ricardo Romero     UFC                                                                       

18 Nick Catone        UFC                                                            

19 Dan Miller          UFC                                                                         

20 Jim Miller         UFC                                                                          

21 John Howard UFC, PFL, WSOF                                              

22 Costas Philippou    UFC                                                                             

23 David Branch     UFC                                                                                     

24 Ryan LaFlare     UFC                                                                                   

25 Jay Silva    UFC, Bellator                                                                         

26 Jimmie Rivera    UFC

27 Julio Arce   TCSUFC                                                   

28 Uriah Hall     TUF, UFC                                              

29 Tom DeBlass  UFC

30 Greg Soto    UFC                                                      

31 Gian Villante   UFC                                                    

32 Al Iaquinta    TUF, UFC

33 Merab Dvalishvili    UFC                                      

34 Nick Pace      UFC

35 Lou Gaudinot   UFC                                                  

36 Paul Bradley UFC, Bellator                                      

37  Joe Solecki     TCS,UFC                                            

38 Rafael Natal      UFC

39 James McSweeney   UFC

40 Charles Oliveira     UFC

41 Sean Salmon    UFC

42 George Sullivan  UFC                                                

43 Edson Barbosa  UFC

44 Shane Burgos     UFC                                                 

45 Brian Kelleher    UFC                                                 

46 John Cholish     UFC                                                   

47 Justine Kish    UFC                                                      

48 Alp Ozkilic     UFC

49 Jessica Eye   UFC, Bellator                                      

50 Dustin Pague    TUF,UFC

51 Chris Wade  WSOF,UFC,PFL                              

52 Ed Gordon      UFC, TUF, PFL                                

53 Frankie Perez    WSOF, UFC                                    

54 Levan Makashvili  UFC                                            

55 Oluwale Bamgbose  UFC

56 Randy Brown    UFC                                                

57 Nordine Taleb   UFC, TUF,Bellator                  

58 Mike Santiago    TCS, UFC

59 Allen Crowder TUF, Bellator, UFC                      

60 Roxanne Modafferi    UFC                                          

61 Jared Gordon      UFC                                                

62 Chris Liguori  UFC, Bellator

63 Ron Stallings     UFC                                                   

64 Keith Berish      TUF, UFC                                           

65 Karl Roberson   TCS, UFC                                        

66 Tony Gravely    TCS, UFC                                          

67 Mike Trizano      TUF, UFC, Bellator                      

68 Dante Rivera    TUF, Bellator                                   

69 Aaron Meisner   TUF                                                   

70 John Clarke         TUF                                                   

71 Ido Pariente        TUF                                                    

72 Brian McLaughlin   TUF                                              

73 Abner Lloveras      TUF                                                

74 Matt Rizzo   TUF, Bellator

75 Mike Stewart       TUF

76 Jeff Lentz TUF, Bellator

77 Victor O’Donnell TUF, Bellator

78 James Jenkins TUF

79 Marc Stevens TUF

80 Marlon Sims TUF, Strikeforce

81 Phil Caracappa Contender Series

82 Bill Algeo Contender Series

83 Shelton Graves Contender Series

84 Krysztof Soszynski TUF, UFC

85 Sidney Outlaw Contender Series, Bellator

86 Liam McGeary Bellator

87 Jesus Martinez Bellator

88 Will Martinez Bellator

89 Kevin Roddy Bellator

90 Andrew Salas Bellator

91 Tom Espinosa Bellator

92 Frankie Buenafuente Bellator

93 Nekruz Mirkhojaev Bellator

94 Suhrob Aidarbekov Bellator

95  Andre Harrison PFL, WSOF

96 Kyle Daukaus Contender Series, UFC

97 Bradley Desir Bellator

98 Lester Caslow Bellator

99 Matt Church WSOF

100 Elias Silverio UFC

101 Anton Telamantes Bellator

102 Shane Crenshaw Bellator

103 Soslan Abanakov WSOF

104 Carlos Brooks Bellator

105 Chris Wing Bellator

106 Walter Howard Bellator

107 Randy Smith Bellator

108 Munah Holland Invicta FC, Bellator

109 Pearl Gonzalez UFC, Invicta FC

110 Marlon Moraes WSOF, UFC

111 Aung La Nsang ONE Championship

112 Chris Birchler Bellator, Contender Series

113 Tom English Bellator

114 Claudio Ledesma Bellator

115 Ryan Contaldi Bellator

116 Joey Kirwan Bellator

117 Giedrius Karavackas Bellator

118 Josh Key WSOF

119 Sergio DaSilva Bellator

120 Valdir Araujo Bellator, WSOF, TUF

121 Marcos Galvao Bellator, PFL

122 Mike Dolce TUF

123 Mikhail Malyutin Bellator

124 Roger Carroll Bellator

125 Edward Guedes Bellator

126 Jesse Riggleman Bellator

127 Tiawan Howard Bellator

128 Andy Main TUF, Bellator

129 Tuan Pham Bellator

130 Anthony Morrison Bellator

131 Rich Lactawa Bellator

132 Nick Cottone Bellator

133 Pilinio Cruz Bellator

134 John Salgado Bellator

135 Matt Makowski Bellator

136 Igor Gracie Bellator, ONE Championship

137 Jesse Moreng WEC

138 Gregor Gracie WSOF, ONE Championship

139 Lance Everson Bellator

140 John Doyle Bellator

141 Erik Charles TUF

142 James Jones Bellator

143 Todd Moore WEC

144 Tenyeh Dixon WSOF

145 Mike Stine TUF

 

 

author avatar
'Beautiful' Bob Meloni
Commentator for Art of War Cagefighting. More than 15 years experience in the PA/NJ regional MMA circuit. Commentator/post fight interviews. Television/media/event production.  USKA Fight Sports media and production. The story of the fighter is what Bob loves about the sport. From the lowest level, to the highest, he only cares about the two warriors who do battle once the cage doors close. Everything else is secondary. Without their blood, sweat, and tears, he would not be here enjoying every minute.