A TEAM WITH SPECIALIZED SKILLS NO OTHER SINGLE TRAINING CENTER HAS
Jason Sargus
Chief Operating Officer & President,
Head Coach, MMA Coach & Wrestling Coach, Strength & Conditioning Coach
Jason has a long lineage of excellence in wrestling training and MMA. Jason is a three-time Grapplers Quest champion, NAGA champion, and a former Division I wrestler for West Virginia University. While at WVU, Jason wrestled under Nate Carr, who was an Olympic Bronze Medalist in 1988, a three-time NCAA Division I National Champion, and a member of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame. Jason also graduated from WVU with a B.A. in English, and was an assistant wrestling coach for several years at Morgantown High School.
After leaving West Virginia, Jason then went to Las Vegas and started training in MMA under the Miletich Fighting Systems with UFC veteran Tony Fryklund.
Jason applies his experience as an educator and advanced teaching techniques to help both the children and adult students he coaches to get the most out of their training.
Jason also trained at Round 1 Boxing and Extreme Couture while in Las Vegas.
At the same time that he was training, Jason completed two years of post-graduate education at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas in secondary education while teaching reading and language arts to fifth graders at Gray Elementary School in Las Vegas, as well as a working as a teacher and therapist for autistic and other special needs children.
After nearly six years in Las Vegas, Jason brought his hard-earned fighting skills, teaching experience, and unique holistic vision of the sport of MMA to Philadelphia.
In addition to his duties as Head Coach overseeing and guiding the training of all of our members and competitive fighters, Jason is currently a strength and conditioning and MMA coach as well as a career manager for the MMA fighters represented by The Brazen Sports Agency.
Having been involved with the sport of MMA since its infancy, and having experienced both the hardships and the benefits of MMA training, Jason has an incredibly well-informed perspective of how MMA training can go wrong, and how to do it as safely and intelligently as possible.
An MMA fighter himself, through dedication to his rehabilitation program and to the strength and conditioning program Jason developed for himself, within six months of cervical spinal surgery, Jason competed in and won the 2009 Grapplers Quest U.S. Nationals of Grappling.
Jason remains the first and only athlete ever to compete in the sport of MMA with a synthetic cervical disc.
Jessica Richman
CEO, Women’s Boxing & Boxing Conditioning Coach
Jessica combines her love of the sports of boxing and MMA with an advanced professional education and keen analytical eye for both the business and the practice of these sports.
Jessica has trained in boxing for over 11 years, having begun boxing in law school, and has a 1-0 record in exhibition boxing bouts. Jessica also currently trains in submission grappling, muay thai, and Brazilian jiu jitsu.
A longtime fitness enthusiast who began instructing cardio fitness classes while an undergraduate student at Williams College, Jessica also is a competitive athlete. She competes in sprint triathlons, road races, and will compete in the 2012 Middle Atlantic Association boxing competition.
In addition to her appreciation for boxing and MMA as a competitor and a student of these disciplines, Jessica brings her experience as a practicing attorney who graduated as valedictorian of Skaneateles High School, graduated magna cum laude from Williams College, and received her law degree from the University of Pennsylvania Law School.
Jessica has been practicing law for over nine years in Philadelphia at one of the city’s oldest law firms, where she has represented Fortune 100 clients, developed expertise in contract law, and honed her research and negotiating skills. Jessica uses her professional experience, legal expertise, and research skills as well as her boxing and fitness instruction experience to help ensure that Brazen Boxing & MMA provides the best learning environment and the smartest training possible to allow Brazen members and fighters to achieve their fitness and athletic career goals.
In that role, Jessica specializes in performing due diligence research on fighters in the matchmaking and fight strategy development processes.
A Coaching Team with Authentic Experience
in the Sports They Teach
In addition to the specialized skills and training of the Brazen Boxing & MMA ownership, our coaches combine their real-world experience and a shared vision to create a unified Brazen coaching team.
Brazen Boxing & MMA is proud to feature many high caliber wrestling coaches, who together make ours the strongest wrestling program of any MMA training center in Philadelphia. In addition to Head Coach Jason Sargus, a three-time Grapplers Quest champion, NAGA champion, and former Division I wrestler for West Virginia University, Brazen boasts a number of highly accomplished wrestlers as coaches. Coach Shane Riccio has a stellar wrestling pedigree as a three-time Division I national qualifier for the Bucknell Bisons, and is among the all-time Top Five in wins for the Bucknell wrestling team with over 100 match wins during his college career. Coach Matt Chrzanowski began wrestling at the age of 5 and continued competing in the sport throughout college. In 2006, as the pinnacle of his competitive career, he earned the honor of becoming a NCAA Division III All-Americ
Our Head Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Coach, Steve Austin, is a brown belt in BJJ and also holds a brown belt in shaolin kempo. Steve has competed in grappling competitions and developed his teaching style at his own MMA training center, Wing’s MMA, for several years. Steve’s 10-year-old son is both an example and an assistant in demonstrating how well Steve’s teaching techniques work for beginning BJJ students. Steve works closely with Professor Jim Wing, BJJ Black Belt and Owner/Co-Founder of Wing’s MMA, in the belt ranking and promotion of Brazen Boxing & MMA’s BJJ students. Professor Wing also holds a Black Belt Kempo Karate, and won the Master-Seniors Brazilian Jiu Jitsu World Championship in Brazil in 2006. He continues to produce top level athletes in BJJ, Karate, and MMA.
Our Boxing Coaches, Walt Moura & Billy Briscoe, each have decades of experience in boxing and boxing training. Walt Moura was the 1979 Golden Gloves Champion for South New Jersey, and has been involved in the sport as an amateur and professional boxer as well as a coach in the decades since he achieved that title. Billy Briscoe has been training boxers since he himself was just 15 years old. As a lifelong student of the sport as well as multiple other martial arts, Billy adapts the old school techniques and melds them with modern sports science and wisdom built over 25 years of training fighters for victory. In addition to the other boxers lucky enough to be trained by Billy, Billy is also the longtime trainer of Gabriel “King” Rosado (18-5, 10 KO’s), a serious Jr. Middleweight contender currently ranked #10 in the world by the IBF, and Victor Vasquez (14-5-1, 7 KO’s), a Lightweight boxer currently ranked 48th in the United States by the Boxing Record Archive.
Our Muay Thai coaches provide authentic training in the finest traditions of the sport, training that has been honed through years of competition, coaching, and teamwork. Ken Perry co-founded Philadelphia Muay Thai with Gerry Brown over 15 years ago, Philadelphia’s longest running Muay Thai club. Ken has competed in amateur Muay Thai competitions, and teaches traditional Muay Thai for competition, self defense and fitness. Ken has a level two certification from Ajarn Chai Sirisute and junior instructor certification under Sakasem. He has also trained in Las Vegas with Master Toddy and Master Luukchang. Our other Muay Thai/Striking Coach, Paul Felder, is an up-and-coming MMA fighter who has battle-tested experience using his muay thai techniques in the cage, and most recently was invited for a third time to the Tapout Ranch to help Donald “Cowboy” Cerrone train for his UFC victory over Charles Oliveira.
Our Children’s Karate Coach, Bobby Kaczak, is a Black Belt in Chinese Goju (“Goju” meaning the “hard and soft way”), a discipline that is said to display the oldest martial arts traditions with a history that can be traced back almost 2000 years. The discipline is based around the idea that both hard and soft techniques should complement each other, and this combination of the two gives Goju Ryu its beauty, disciplined movements, grace and flowing form. With the ‘Go’ (hard or positive) and the ‘Ju’ (soft or negative) in consistent harmony, one equalizing the other, a simple act like blocking or striking will eventually occur naturally, in flow with the mind-body connection brought about through thoughtful training and repetition. This approach mirrors the Brazen model of holistic MMA training and transitional MMA techniques that fill the gaps traditional MMA gyms often have.
