Email   Print   Share By Michael Heckman, Sentinel Sports Editor

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Temporarily in control, Spc. Stephen Glen, HHC, 89th Infantry Bde., lost his grappling match Monday during Army combatives matches at Abrams gym. Michael Heckman, Sentinel Sports Editor

On top, Pfc. Tyler Charington, HHC, 1-3 ACR, won his grappling match Monday against Pfc. Michael Dye, 36th Eng. Bde, during preliminary combatives rounds. Michael Heckman, Sentinel Sports Editor

Private 1st Class Tyler Charington, HHC, 1-3 ACR, won his match Monday against Pfc. Michael Dye, 36th Eng. Bde, during preliminary combatives rounds. Michael Heckman, Sentinel Sports Editor

Looking to improve upon its seventh-place team standing in last year’s All-Army Combatives Tournament, the top three winners in each weight division of this year’s Fort Hood Combatives Tournament – to be determined by championship bouts that begin tonight at 6 p.m. – will receive professional training.

“Our objective here is to get a team that’s going to win the All-Army tournament,” said Lt. Col. Reynold Arredondo, the tournament’s officer-in-charge and a member of its host unit, the 163rd Military Intelligence Battalion, 504th Battlefield Surveillance Brigade.

Standing on the hardwood basketball court Monday at Abrams Physical Fitness Center, which had been converted into three separate fight areas with cushioned mats, Arredondo attributed the record 295 individual tournament entrants to publicity and the training offered for active duty, reserve and National Guard unit Soldiers who are part of III Corps and Fort Hood.

In addition to Aberdeen Proving Grounds, Md., combatants have arrived from Forts Benning, Sill, Carson and Riley. Grappling matches were held Monday and Tuesday, combined kick boxing and wrestling matches were held Wednesday and tonight’s championship matches will resemble UFC cage fights, combining wrestling, jiu-jitsu, hand strikes and kick boxing.

“It’s a pretty amazing turnout but there are two key factors: the Soldiers understand Army combatives is essential to their development and ... the top three in each weight category will be made special duty and will continue to train with our pro trainers to continue on to the All-Army tournament (to be held Oct. 1-3 at Fort Benning, Ga.).”

The trainers include three-time All-Army Combatives Tournament champion Staff Sgt. Tim Kennedy, assigned to the 19th Special Forces Group based at Camp Bullis, near San Antonio.

“This is going on at all the other posts throughout the U.S. so it’s a high-level tournament. I don’t think it gets the prestige it deserves considering the quality of athletes who compete,” Kennedy said.

In addition to training combatives athletes, Kennedy appears in Mixed Martial Arts events professionally “so it gives me a chance to recruit and represent the Army honorably so I get some leeway to prepare for that,” he added.

As a Green Beret and sniper, Kennedy had multiple combat deployments.

“I can’t count the number of times I’ve had hand-to-hand combat situations so it has saved my life and other guys’ lives, too,” he said.

Jeff Mullenax, a former Marine police officer who specializes in Brazilian jiu-jitsu, is one of the trainers from the Grappler’s Lair in Belton, which received a contract to train the top three finishers in each weight division of the post tournament.

“If it comes to it, man-to-man, where it’s too tight for a long gun or a knife or sidearm, stuff like this will give them (Soldiers) an edge to subdue, submit or make space so they can deploy their weapon,” Mullenax said.

For some Soldiers the tournament represents additional combatives training. Others hope to make the post team and compete at Fort Benning.

Monday afternoon, Pfc. Tyler Charington, Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 1-3 ACR, won his 140-pound match against Pfc. Michael Dye, 36th Eng. Bde.

Although he wrestled and received jiu-jitsu training in high school, Charington said the post tournament is his first.

“I just hope to gain some experience,” Dye said.

But Spc. Jonte Ross, Headquarters and Headquarters Detachment, 183rd Maint. Co., Fort Carson, Colo., plans to fight in the All-Army tournament.

He lost the first combatives tournament he competed in a year ago, “so I came here to improve. My goal is to make the All-Army tournament,” he said.