In 2004, Gracie Tampa opened its doors. Since then, Gracie Tampa has produced The Ultimate Fighter Season 5 star Allen “Monsta Lobstah” Berube, TUF 6 and current UFC fighter Matt “No Regard” Arroyo, and former NFL player turned pro-fighter Marcus Jones. In addition, unconfirmed reports indicate that Brandon “Murder” Sene from Gracie Tampa will be a TUF 7 contestant.

I had the opportunity to sit down with the head instructor and Royce Gracie jiu-jitsu black belt Rob Kahn to talk about Gracie Tampa.

MMAFightLine.com: Rob, I’d like to thank you for taking the time to talk to MMAFightline about Gracie Tampa. Tell me about your school.

Kahn: 2007 was a banner year for us. We moved to a new facility and it’s allowed us to step up the training. We have two rooms set up and now my professional fighters can get a lot more training, but I can still teach my traditional classes to pay the bills. We moved here at the end of last year, and last year we had our best year in MMA. We’ve had two guys fighting in the UFC – Allen “Monstah Lobstah” Berube and Matt Arroyo. We fought in the Bonecrunch League last year, and we’ve been fighting locally in the Real Fighting Championships (RFC) and World Fighting Championships (WFC) as well as other promotions around Florida. I get calls now all the time from promotions all over the country so there is no shortage of events for our fighters.

MMAFightLine.com: You are a black belt under Royce Gracie right?

Kahn: Yes, I moved to Tampa in October of 2004. I opened the school in November 2004, and we’ve been around for almost 4 years now.

MMAFightLine.com: Now, you have 2 schools in Tampa.

Kahn: That’s right – we opened our South Tampa school. I’m down there a few times a week, and Matt Arroyo and Rob “Ferret” Neagle run that school who are both brown belts under me. This school (North Tampa) is my school, and I along with Cristina “Midget Twister” Rodriguez are pretty much here every day.

MMAFightLine.com: That’s got to be the best fight nickname – Midget Twister (laughs). Where did she get that nickname?

Kahn: (laughs) The Midget Twister is a move that was named by one of my first students Justin “Chim Chim”Garcia in New York, and she liked the move so she took the nickname. She is a spectacular grappler. She won the bronze medal in the World Grappling Championship. We’d like to get her into Abu Dhabi in 2009.