Raul Rosas Jr. recently reflected on his relationship with his late coach and teammate Trevor Cooper.
Rosas Jr. (9-1) won by second-round submission over Ricky Turcios at UFC on ESPN 57 on June 8. “El Nino Problema” dedicated the win to Cooper, who passed away in April.
Cooper was Rosas Jr.’s teammate at 10th Planet Jiu Jitsu in Las Vegas when he suffered his only career loss to Christian Rodriguez at UFC 287 in April 2023. According to Rosas Jr., it was Cooper who helped him most in identifying and correcting his mistakes from that loss. Rosas Jr., who has won six of his nine career wins by submission, fondly acknowledges that Cooper could submit him 10 times within a few minutes. Cooper, who trusted Rosas Jr., expected the Mexican to have an easy time against Trusios, unlike the other fighters in his gym. The 19-year-old Rosas Jr. told The MMA Hour:
“He was a big deal to me, like a brother, like a coach,” Rosas Jr. told The MMA Hour. “He believed in me a lot. After my loss to Christian Rodriguez, he was the one who helped me bounce back the most. He wasn’t on my side, but he watched the fight. And then he started training me, correcting all the little mistakes, even mistakes that I didn’t even realize I made. That’s how he raised me.” [a] He was a much better fighter. He could have tapped me 10 times in like two minutes. Everybody knew he was a jiu-jitsu master. He was very smart. And then he passed away. Even when he was alive, I was fighting Rickley Tarsius and everybody here was saying it was going to be a tough fight, it was going to be a war, and so on. But he was like, ‘Oh, this is going to be another easy fight, like the Terrence Mitchell fight.'”
Cooper previously made headlines after strangling a man nearly twice his size just outside 10th Planet Jiu Jitsu. Cooper was found dead in April this year after a day-long standoff with police in his townhome in Henderson, Nevada. Police initially attempted to serve an arrest warrant on Cooper for kidnapping, assault and drugging. Cooper, a jiu jitsu specialist, fired at the SWAT team, who returned fire but no one was injured. Police entered the home after nearly two days of barricading and found Cooper dead from a drug overdose.
