Being tased is as fun as tattoo removal by skin abrasion (just ask Tommy Batboy, who still holds the record for tasings in the state of Indiana). Anyone that volunteers to be shot with 50,000 volts of electricity will tell you that shit hurts. Of course when you’re the one doing the tasing, it’s just plain old funny, especially when it’s a celebrity like Latoya Jackson or Erik Estrada convulsing on the ground. Arron Barringer was an Albuquerque police officer who laughed his way through a slew of tasings, but never made it onto COPS, depriving us on the opportunity to sing “Bad Boys” to fuck with him. Whatcha gonna do?

Aaron started his military career off right, enlisting to be a paratrooper in the 1/501^st Airborne at Ft. Richardson, Alaska so he could hunt moose on his off time. But a tragic curling accident left him brain dead after he broke through thin ice and when he woke from his coma, Arron left the Army for the Marine Corps, where he served in the 1^st Recon Battalion just before the Iraq invasion. That sport should be banned! Why else do we like him? Glad you asked.

Arron once took a case of whiskey and a full terrabyte of porn with him on a deployment while on the USS Tarawa. When questioned by his superior officer, Arron claimed they were critical components of his job as Fight Club coach. No one objected.

Arron spent two years working a beat in the scariest town we’ve ever known-Albuquerque-while training at Greg Jackson’s MMA. So did Forrest Griffin.

Arron worked as a “contractor” running security for Cochise Consultancy in Iraq until he was released for taking an unauthorized trip to Bangkok without leaving the ground. Think about it.

After Iraq, Arron moved to Houston after hearing about its legendary blues scene and became a fat musician / fat college student / successful rocket surgeon until his lethargy caught up with him and he was accepted onto The Biggest Loser…without sending in an audition tape.

After losing 247 pounds, Arron became a session bassist (whatever that is) for Joey Fender and the 55’s, based out of Northern California, and several blues and rockabilly bands in Houston, begging the question, “What’s a 55?”

Arron stabbed himself in the eye in Recon school while demonstrating how to open a tuna fish can with a machete. True story.

Arron was on the debate team in High School. To this day he shouts, “You, sir, are out of line!” whenever someone mentions a ring tailed lemur.

Now that we’ve busted his chops, Ranger Up is proud to sponsor former paratrooper, former Marine, and former cop Arron Barringer this weekend at some fight show that we can’t remember. Ranger Up!

Captain Elias Donker has walked on the dark side of the street and emerged into the lamplight with scars. And by dark side of the street, we mean the seedy world of male cheerleading. The way he puts it, a bevy of blonde haired, blue eyed future maxim models insisted he become a cheerleader so they could feel his svelt rippling hands on their thighs. We suspect he was just another red-blooded American boy looking for an excuse to let loose his Roman eyes and Russian hands. Nothing wrong with that…until the cheerleading team makes you wear a skirt and a wig because they need one more female to complete “The Pyramid of Death.” We draw the line there.

In defense of his manliness, Eli was forced to lift weights like a young Corey Everson and graduated high school at 220 lbs, got scholarships for academics and cheerleading, and was on two consecutive top 10 cheerleading teams in the nation before giving it up for Rugby. Sounds like over-compensating, but we can’t bust his balls too much since rugby is the second manliest sport in the world.

Eli has never been seriously injured during MMA or Rugby, but suffered a separated shoulder, a broken eye socket, and 16 total stitches from college cheerleading. Juggling chicks doesn’t sound like so much fun all of a sudden.

Eli had to deal with an evil moniker issue growing up. Kind of like being named Fabio, having the last name of Donker is just rife for pubescent jokes and schoolyard teasing. The upside is it makes you tough as nails because repeatedly being called “Donkmaster” predisposes one to after school meetings in the parking lot of 7-11 for pugilistic conflict resolution (ironically most of the male cheerleaders on Eli’s team were in fact, named Fabio).

A fellow Officer in Iraq thought it was funny to imitate Shrek and yell “Donkey” at irregular intervals until Eli urinated in a cup, lean it against his door at a forty-five degree angle, and knocked. His barracks learned the drawback of Persian rugs – though soft and durable, they hold an aroma for months.

The brutish enforcer in Crocodile Dundee 2 (because one wasn’t enough) was named Donk and it’s believed he was modeled after Eli. Tommy Batboy’s favorite catchphrase is, “I don’t need a gun. I’ve got a Donk.”

Eli knows a thing or two about insurgency. His grandparents were very active in the Dutch resistance in WWII and maintains an old chest in the attic filled with bloody trophy swastika arm bands and daggers and were awarded a couple of Dutch Orders of Orange. Makes my dad’s North Vietnamese flag look like a party streamer.

Eli was a proud member of the Rakassans (3BCT 101st ABN) for 4.5 years and 2 tours. As he puts it, “I got into a debate on the merits of Democracy vs. Islamic fundamental theocracy with some boys, conducted with small arms and explosives. I won, of course, but they had a pretty formidable argument.”

Eli is such a bad driver that he is responsible for the term “Vehicular Breech” being added to the Army doctrinal vocabulary. He once parked a Humvee with a .50 cal and a spotlight in someone’s front yard in Iraq. We can’t wait to see what he does when his daughter starts dating.

Eli is a full time Guardsman in Indiana and works in a training center that was converted from an insane asylum (complete with a dungeon and electroshock therapy equipment) and is, of course, haunted. Contrary to popular belief he does NOT have flashbacks, shiver uncontrollably, and piss his pants when someone whispers, “Get out!”

Eli just returned from Iraq and will be in the cage fighting this weekend. That’s “Fuck you, I’m Alexander the Great” self-confidence, so we’re happy to sponsor him. Rakassan!

Jorge Rivera rules.

The recently released Hollywood film, Dear John, is inspired by the life of a current Mesa student and his story of finding romance during a leave from the Army.

Todd Vance, 28, is Nicholas Sparks’ cousin, the author of Dear John. Vance said Sparks based the novel-turned-film on his life while serving in the United States Army.

“There a few things he [Sparks] changed to make the story more interesting, but it is a pretty accurate depiction of what really happened,” said Vance.

The film is set in South Carolina where John is on leave from the army, meets a girl, and falls in love. The two are inseparable and continue dating and writing letters to each other, though he deploys back to Germany and she goes back to school.

“I came home on leave for two weeks and met a girl on the beach,” said Vance. “We spent every minute together and wrote to each other after I left.”

Vance, a San Diego native, enlisted with the Army in 1999, where he served as a Squad Leader in the Army Infantry as well as the 3rd Striker Brigade. Prior to Sept. 11, he had four months left on his contract, but re-enlisted and served in the war that ensued.

“We flew to Kuwait, and then the striker unit drove to northern Iraq,” said Vance.

While the romance follows Vance’s life more closely, the combat scenes are portrayed quite differently.

“In the movie John is in the Special Forces, which I was not,” Vance said. “He is also shot twice in the back. I was never shot, but pieces of metal flew into my back after a grenade explosion.”

In the film, while he is in combat, John learns that his dad is dying, and is sent back home to be with him, which is similar to the happenings in Vance’s life.

“My step-dad had a cyst behind his pancreas and had surgery to have it removed,” he said. “He passed from complications with the surgery.”

While this happens when John is in combat, Vance says it actually happened when he was on his two-week leave in San Diego, when he initially met his girlfriend.

The movie also shows John being broken up with in a final letter his girlfriend sends him telling him she’s engaged to someone else.

“My girlfriend never cheated on me, we stayed together the whole time,” said Vance.

Vance was let out of the Army in 2005, and came back home to San Diego, where he returned to his girlfriend, though they broke up after his homecoming.

“Being away from each other was really tough, and it created a lot of tension,” he said. “I also had a lot to deal with and it didn’t make the relationship work.”

In the end of the movie, John and his ex-girlfriend reunite after he comes back home, but similar to real life, the couple did not stay together in the movie.

“After the movie came out, we started talking again, but we’re just friends,” concluded Vance.

We at RU know that all kids think their parents are full of crap until they become one (see…Jamaican degrees in action), so it was inevitable that Pat’s disdain for his dear pops would come to a screeching halt. One night he and his dad were working in a bar (his dad got him a job there-nice) when Senior Miller dropped three guys in one fight. Suddenly Patrick ate all his veggies and cleaned his room without being asked. That’s one reason we like him – respect for his elders.

Another reason we like him is he’s the freakshow circus strongman of his unit. Pat has wrestled since he was four years old and got into MMA by watching wrestlers like Dan Severn destroy guys in early UFCs. Now when his unit combatives training is done he frequently gets jumped by guys who think they can pin him. As a result Pat has become proficient at tying humans into knots like party balloons. The down side to being a wrestler atrociously bad striking skills. Pat has never thrown a straight punch in a fight and has only thrown three kicks in his career. That would probably get him knocked out like Damien Maia, but we like to think of him more as a larger BJ Penn, who also only throws kicks when they can end fights (ask Diego Sanchez).

Here are some other fun facts about him:

-Pat was trying to look tough at his first fight and was doing well until his kid asked, “After the fight can we get some candy?” Randy Couture once had the same issue.

-When his wife was pregnant, Pat figured it would be okay to fight in New Mexico on Halloween night. Baby girl had different plans. That’s right – early labor and a baby girl on Halloween night. Guess she knew daddy was about to dole out some pain.

-Pat’s toughness only goes so far – he has to wear a mask to change dirty diapers so he doesn’t throw up. Awwww…muffin.

-Pat is incapable of breaking 100 while bowling and frequently falls down on the slippery lanes. His friends asked him to join their bowling league just so they could laugh at Bozo the Clown on ice and put up the gutter bumpers.

Staff Sergeant Pat Miller will be headlining the South Texas Fighting Championships this weekend against Ricco Rodriguez.

If it takes a village to raise a fighter then former Army Sergeant Mark Flavin has been raised in Fightertown USA wearing “Fuck Tom Cruise” diapers. The son of an Army Ranger, Mark moved around a lot and spent a year as one of the only white kids in a mostly Hispanic high school in Texas where he had to fight for his life nearly every day. So did MMA guru Greg Jackson, who developed his own legendary fighting style from those experiences. The big difference is Greg developed Ground and Pound while Mark perfected the art of Throw and Run. Nowadays Mark’s pugilistic education is led by Team Rhino ass-kickers Kris McCray and Brian Vanhoven, so his village is tougher than Dodge City beef jerky. That’s one reason we like him.

Another reason is because he’s raising his own fighter. On the evening of UFC 109, when two over-40 fighting legends were throwing down in the octagon for millions of dollars, Mark was holding mitts for his 15 year-old son to prepare him for his first boxing match. Apparently the Flavin family is a long line of Irish boxers going back to the legendary John L Sullivan, so again-if it takes a village to raise a fighter, Mark has the pedigree of a champion. That doesn’t exempt him from the usual Ranger Up ball busting, so here’s the other reasons we like him:

Mark was a Signaleer in the Army (Wig Wags we call ‘em), which means he did his training in Fort Gordon, Georgia just outside Augusta. During the PGA Masters elite “Green Jacket” dinner for only the best golfers, Mark and his buddies got drunk and tried to crash the party, which would have worked if someone hadn’t been hiding a 40-ouncer of Old English 800 under his coat. That guy’s name rhymes with Park.

Once Mark was selling new homes when his surgically repaired cauliflower ear started dripping blood and pus on a contract as a couple buying their first home was signing it. That’s truly disgusting, Wrath of Khan, mind-controlling-worm-in-your-ear type stuff. Awesome!

Mark was 5-0 as an amateur fighter until he was rudely introduced to jiu jitsu and forced to tap out due to an inescapable triangle choke. So was Nate Marquardt. It never happened again.

Mark is a project manager for a company that installs energy systems in high-rise buildings. During an install a janitor mentioned a putrid odor coming from behind a wall. Mark tore the wall open, found Jimmy Hoffa’s rotting corpse and quickly resealed it saying, “Nothing here. Must be a chicken.”

Mark has one of the most vile sex stories ever. It’s so foul in fact that we can’t reprint it here (two words – got poop?). But his coach Elijah will be more than happy to tell anyone, anywhere, anytime about it, including MMA legend Pat Miletich for no apparent reason. It’s a great party starter.

Now that we’ve beaten and flayed him, Ranger Up is proud to sponsor Mark Flavin this weekend when he makes his pro debut in some parking lot fighting some unknown dude. Don’t fuck it up, Sarge!

Team Rhino has started off 2010 in pugilistic style, notching six wins in six fights in January. As most of you know, Ranger Up only sponsors fighters with military backgrounds and we call these Crusaders of the Cage Team Rhino. It’s our way of giving back to the guys who defend our freedom and want to pursue their octagon dreams. This month we got behind six guys, all of whom showed their indomitable spirit and accomplished their Ranger mission in venues across the country.

Former Marine Brian Vanhoven kickedstarted this party with a win against a game Mike Cook, securing a TKO in the 2^nd round. Then Georgia National Guardsman Kenny Jackson submitted Matt Hughes disciple Liko Mahoe halfway through the first round at MMA Big Show. Super heavyweight and active Army Soldier Brandon Sayles continued the streak with a first round TKO win in Columbus, Georgia.

Sergeant Tony Sills’ victory was probably the most dominant. He successfully convinced his opponent that it wasn’t in his best interest to show up. He didn’t, so Sills won by default. Not to be outdone, former LRSD soldier Alex Soto only needed forty-five seconds to slap an armbar on his opponent and former Ranger Gert Kocani TKO’d Greg Jackson protégé Diego Brandao in the second round to cap off a perfect month for Team Rhino.

As a token of our appreciation, each Team Rhino fighter will receive a $10,000 bonus. Okay that’s bullshit. A bottle of Maker’s Mark, an inflatable woman, and a dozen Shamwow’s is as good as it gets. Congrats, guys!

Although we normally like to bust our fighter’s balls, we’re going to stop here before we find a horse’s head in our bed. Ranger Up is proud to sponsor Gert Kocani when he fights this weekend in Virginia. Ranger Up!

A former Infantryman, Alex spent 4 years in the 25^th Infantry Division’s Long Range Surveillance Detachment, one of them in Afghanistan. While deployed, Alex got bored and read “The Tunnel Rats of Cu Chi” one night. The next day he volunteered to be the first one into an insurgent tunnel…until it suddenly collapsed and he ran like Usain Bolt for his life. Another night in Afghanistan, Alex was sleeping when a motor round hit his base. Alex jumped out of bed, grabbed a sniper rifle and ran outside in his tightie whities to shoot down the round. Apparently he thought he was a Patriot missile. That’s what she said.

Alex aspired to be a diver, but since there was no real training in that field in Hawaii, he returned to his hometown of San Diego and got a job training dolphins for the US Navy. They now find stuff in the water like people, mines, and Carmen Electra’s panties after she visits ships and “motivates the sailors.”

Alex has a Doctor Doolittle history of talking to animals. Besides the dolphins he trains, he has a cocker spaniel who told him to be an MMA fighter during a walk one day. So did the Son of Sam.

Alex’s translation isn’t always accurate. He once sent an email and spent the next year explaining that he meant to say, “I’m bilingual.”

Ranger Up is proud to sponsor Alex Soto when he fights this weekend at Acorn Casino in California and again on Feb 13^th when he fights in Tijuana, Mexico. Ranger Up!

Although we’d like to think Brandon is the runt of some freakishly huge Samoan litter, he’s actually Hawaiian and marks BJ Penn as one of his influences. His wife’s cousin’s brother is Rudy Valentino’s friend from a car wash gig, so Brandon is in tight with the Penn crew and wants to represent Hawaii like Mister Baby Jay (that’s BJ Penn’s moniker in case you didn’t know). Now it’s time to make fun of Brandon like every other Team Rhino member.

Brandon has no idea what a farm looks like, but eats more than the average American farmer can produce in a week. So does Brock Lesnar, although Brock prefers to kill his dinner himself.

Brandon deployed to Iraq in 2008 with 3rd Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division. Until that time, Iraqis had no translation for the word Sasquatch. Now they do.

Brandon played basketball in High School until his presence on the court became cost prohibitive to the State of Hawaii. He scared tourists away from Diamond Head when they swore it became an active volcano. It was actually just Brandon’s stomach growling.

MMA is just a hobby to Brandon. How many people do you know that list ‘breaking limbs and using them as Q-Tips’ as a hobby?

Brandon made his professional MMA debut in Columbus, Georgia and won via TKO. Congrats Big Sarge!