Once in a while we hear a story that just seems too far-fetched to be true. Your buddy killed eighteen Taliban with a knife? Riiiiiight. Jeremy Meyers has a couple of those “fish that got away” tales as well. As the story has been passed from generation to generation, Jeremy wound up in a shit talking contest with RU favorite and author of Assholes Finish First, Tucker Maxx which led to a fight challenge. Little did Jeremy know at the time, but Tucker trains on the mat regularly and when they finally fought, Jeremy ended up kicking some ass after first realizing that this wasn’t going to be easy, and Tucker cut him a sponsorship check on the spot. From that point on, Tucker has been sponsoring Jeremy and even invited Jeremy to leave his Buckeye state for the land of the Lone Star, which Jeremy did late last year. Now they are BFF’s and like to take walks in the park on Sunday afternoon after they train together.

Jeremy goes by the moniker of Kamikaze, which he picked up as a young fighter because he fought with no real game plan, but rather a mantra of “going crazy on that ass.” The name stuck and he has been going bat-shit on people since although he acknowledges that once he was able to fight with a more technical and planned approach fights have been much easier to manage. Jeremy is such a fierce competitor that last year he took three fights within the span of a month, to which he states that keeping his weight down for such a prolonged period was a “royal pain in the dick.”

Like all of the Ranger Up fighters, Jeremy has worn a uniform and one that included an arm-brassard (I know, I know…WTF is an arm-brassard…but it just sounds so freaking cool) as a Military Policeman. While he has no stories to tell regarding life in the uniform (I am sensing a whole lot more asshattery than he is willing to let on), he does state that the only thing that he is really afraid of are constricting snakes (insert Alabama Black Snake joke here!)

Jeremy has some pretty strong goals in his fight career. He wants to fight a total of 100 times. By my calculations with him accepting every fight he’s offered, he will have that knocked out by fall 2012. That is, if he stays clean off his addictions, namely Sour Patch Kids candy and Arnold Palmer drinks. Really? Iced tea and Lemonade? C’mon son…RTFU and grab a little Maker’s.

Jeremy has been a Ranger Up fighter for some time, and if he keeps his Fun-and-Gun style of fighting with the same disregard for life as a Kamikaze, we will be hearing from him again in the future.

Please welcome Jeremy Meyers to the RU Fight Family!

Jerrid spent 6 years in the Navy (insert random Seaman Joke here) as an electronics technician. While circumnavigating the globe he discovered one great truth that many Seamen know – Thailand is awesome. While he claims it was the awesome Muay Thai classes, he stutters nervously when asked about the infamous “Lady Boys” of Thailand. “I would never get caught,” he says. Hmmm, bad experience maybe?

After the lucha libre mask, grand entrances have become Jerrid’s thing and since then he’s worn everything from a Superman costume to a Tuxedo on a tricycle. Jerrid often wonders if his over the top entrances play Psyops with his opponents that he is completely out of control or if they gain a false sense of confidence as to his abilities when the Gummi-bear song is blaring overhead. One thing is for sure…if they should happen to end up on the ground, Burke has a tendency to submit his opponents from the bottom; with all of his professional submissions coming from that position…from the bottom! Unreal.

In reality, Jerrid traditionally likes to keep the fight standing and explains that it is easier for him to pace the fight on his feet and has some wicked kicks that would make a 100 foot oak tree tremble. The ultimate knockout that Jerrid has been working on excessively is the somersault kick to the head for a knockout. Maybe he could do that with the “Barbie Girl” song playing in the background for the ultimate “Fairy Knock Out.”

Did we mention that Jerrid has a girlfriend who just happens to have the nick name of Sexy Sargent and who just happens to be an MMA writer? This guy has it going on…except for his one downfall. Jerrid is an MTV addict. When not training his ass off or studying for his college finals he can routinely be found in front of the TV watching Teen Mom and Jersey Shore (he may have just lost a couple of cool points). While he is consumed by this-show-is-so-bad-that-I-can’t-stop-watching of teen-trash and Jersey Douchery, Jerrid most likely will be munching on pizza and doughnuts. He really doesn’t have that much trouble with his weight (must be nice).

If you should happen to be in the South Florida on 17 December, Jerrid will be fighting on the card for the Championship Fight Alliance 4 at the Bank United Center in Miami. Go check him out; he just may be rocking a 1920’s gentlemen’s moustache complete with twist for the Stache Bash!

While on a Presidential detail in Paris, France (She hates the French as much as we do, just so you know), Kelsey and the guys were having a drunken fest at their 20-something-story-hotel. Kelsey went up to her room for something and as she jumped into the elevator on the way back down to the bar, the elevator car began to free-fall. Finally after falling a couple of stories, the brakes caught, but Kelsey was trapped and when she tried to call for help, the only voice that responded to the call box was one in French (cry me a river). As she waited for her knight in shining armor to come and rescue her, and as her life was flashing before her eyes, all that she could think about in her alcohol induced stupor was…food…yes…food; kind of anti-climatic, I know.

When you first look at her picture, one would think that guys are chasing Kelsey all over the place as she’s bringing sexy back, but Kelsey explains that she really doesn’t have too many suitors when she goes out on the town with her friends. I am just thinking here, but maybe that could be because the word has gotten out that in her last fight, Kelsey destroyed her opponent with some vicious elbows in the first round, and the fact that she towers over most people at 5’10”. I am just sayin…

Kelsey is good friends with fellow Ranger Up Fighter Colton Smith who volunteered for corner duties in her last fight. They originally met after a little bit of shit-talking after one of her fights. Not one to stand down from a challenge, Kelsey went up to Colton’s gym and was immediately schooled on the ground. But, after taking the game to a standing position and telling him “what goes around comes around”, Kelsey pummeled him with her boxing skills. From that point on they have been training together, even outside of the gym with Kelsey trying to assist with Colton’s lack of dancing skills. Kelsey’s favorite saying to Colton when he is feeling a little blue about his two-left-feet is to RTFU.

During the day, Kelsey can be found at the Marine – Martial Arts Center for Excellence – in Quantico, Virginia. It is there that she can usually be found beating the crap out of some cocky young Marine who just doesn’t think that a woman can kick his ass to which she responds “I will rock your body.” MACE is also where a little you tube video was made. It really isn’t that big of a deal, just Kelsey calling out a pretty famous singer and actor for a date to the Marine Corps Ball that garnered national media attention. Google it!

Ranger Up wishes to welcome Kelsey DeSantis to Team Rhino!

With a 6-1 amateur record and currently 2-0 in his pro career, Colton has a won his last four fights in the first round by rear-naked-choke. Colton explains that choking out opponents isn’t the only thing he likes to choke. There’s also this thing that he has…um…never mind. The only thing that Colton has a hard time not choking out is the plethora of liberal tree-huggers he tends to run into in the greater DC area. Colton also has secret superpowers, wears Superman Underoos and has accepted the mission to stomp out the “Occupy” movement by luring them away with his incredible dance moves and his mesmerizingly, surgically enhanced, perfectly-shaped…ass. Wait, did I just say that?

Colton was once arrested for fighting. That in itself really isn’t that interesting, but when you add that he was dressed as a dead Osama bin Laden and he was fighting a bunch of Russians in an Irish Pub in Germany, it paints the term “keeping up foreign relations” in a whole new light.

If Colton’s opponents ever want an edge in a fight all they have to do is douse themselves in olive juice. Colton has an unnatural fear of olives; they are kind of like his Kryptonite. Don’t ever drink a dry martini with an olive near him or you are likely to end up being choked out; and for God’s sake don’t put one on the end of your finger and point it at him.

Please welcome Colton Smith to Team Rhino. Ranger Up has actually sponsored him for 4 fights now, but we’ve been in a drunken haze for the last two years and lost track of the time.

It's not polite to look down a man's tube

Check it out here.

Before joining the Army, Jeremiah had a promising football career at Mississippi Delta College. Before you say, “Mississippi Delta? No pro football players come from podunk schools like that,” go look up a guy named Jerry Rice.

Jeremiah was destined to for MMA fame in the International Fight League until they went totally bankrupt, though he had nothing to do with it. After bouncing around between a few gyms, Jeremiah landed in the birthplace of his idol Abraham Lincoln to train with UFC legend Matt Hughes at his Illinois HIT squad facility.

If Jeremiah looks familiar it’s either because of his cameo appearance on the Jonas Brothers world tour as the piccolo player or because you saw him on VH-1′s show, Rock of Love. Jeremiah was given the name “Big Rig” by Daisy De La Hoya because she noticed he wore a size 14 shoe and figured bug feet…big personality. Or it oculd be because he once drove trucks back home in Mississippi. We’re not sure. On the show Riggs quickly made a name for himself with his southern charm and wild country boy antics. In an MMA fight arranged by the show’s producers Riggs defeated VH1 reality star “12 Pack” by gogoplata and massive cranial hemoraging. Just to pass the time, Jeremiah caught a skunk in the house and performed a song for Daisy wearing only a bass guitar. Dude has cajones.

Fun fact – In the summer of 2009 Riggs was selected for I Love Money 3 on VH1. Jeremiah was kicking ass on the show until a brown recluse spider gnawed on him and he had to withdraw from the competition. Not that the show would have been aired anyway since the winner of the show killed his wife and committed suicide. Sometimes losing can be a good thing.

Ranger Up is proud to sponsor former Ranger Batboy Jeremiah Riggs and his down home, skunk catchin’, noodle fishin’, ass kickin’, skoal can in the back pocket self.

Another reason is his work ethic. If all work and no play make for a dull life then Steve is as bored as a Trekkie at a Star Wars convention. During a year-long tour of duty in Korea he ventured outside the gates of Camp Stanley exactly four times, and three of those were to recover broken vehicles. He worked tirelessly as a wheeled vehicle mechanic to keep the fleet rolling and his only moment of levity was when sweat froze to his face during an early morning mountain top run.

Born and raised in Iowa, Steve participated in the state sport – wrestling – but only after his delusions of NBA grandeur were destroyed by his small stature. He didn’t win a single wrestling match in 7th grade, but stuck with the sport anyway and was the basis for the Corey Haim-Charlie Sheen movie, Lucas. That’s persistence.

Despite being in a car accident that shattered his leg and left him bedridden for six months (sounds like Frank Mir), he still trains and fights full time and is one of the favorites to win the Bellator welterweight tournament that begins on April 22nd.

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!

Below is the excerpt from the original interview from FighterXFashion.com, which you can find here>>

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No other clothing company out there today represents combat culture quite like Ranger Up. Boasting one of the best looking assortments of graphic tees in the business, Ranger Up makes military-inspired gear for the troops, MMA fighters, fight fans, and of course, the men and women of the world who support the Armed Forces. We catch up with Tom Amenta, one part of the Ranger Up crew, for the inside scoop on the world’s most militant Mixed Martial Arts clothing company.

Tell us a bit about Ranger Up, your team and your plans to conquer the world.

Starting off we have El Presidente and the founder of the company, Nick Palmisciano. He is a West Point graduate and served as a US Army Infantry Captain, his last billet being the Operations Officer for the US Army’s elite Ranger School. He started this thing off as a hobby when he was volunteering to teach ROTC kids military MMA and small unit tactics and we’ve just exploded. The company was founded in September 2006 out of an apartment and has grown to the point where we just moved to our second warehouse (complete with an MMA style gym in the back). The design on that is all Nick, except for the Thai heavy bag instead of a boxing heavy bag, which was my call.

As for me, I’m Tom Amenta, I am the Operations guy. I was introduced to Nick through a mutual friend when the company needed writers for the stories we post on our content site RhinoDen.com. I won the first contest while I was a senior at the University of Illinois, after serving 5 years on active duty as a member of the US Army’s 75th Ranger Regiment. As Nick and I got to know each other he invited me out to a fight show, tossed me a cell phone and told me I was going to do sales for the company. I was either doing ok at it or he was really desperate because he called me one day and asked if I could move to North Carolina. I asked how much time I had. He told me four days. I told him four days wasn’t a lot of time to decide if I was going to leave the Midwest, move half way across the country and accept the job. Ever the confident dude, he told me he meant four days to move here. I took the job, moved to Operations, and I haven’t looked back since.

Next is our chief marketing mad genius and Design Director, Garrett Schemmel. G$, as we call him, has been with the company since it started. If you love the designs, notice our ads on line or in Fight! Magazine, you’re seen Garrett’s handiwork. Son of an Army Sniper, awesome dude, and a two time graduate from Georgia Tech. He brings a sense of calm professionalism to the company as the rest of us are basically testosterone-filled orangutans.

Our most famous team member is Tim Kennedy, who is an Army Special Forces sniper and Strikeforce 185lb fighter. Tim met Nick when Ranger Up did a photo shoot to raise money for the Wounded Warrior Project in early 2007. They hit it off immediately, probably because they’re both sarcastic jack asses. Joking aside, Tim is a very astute businessman and we all share the same values, so after Tim worked with Ranger Up a few times he was invited to become a partner. He now works closely with Garrett on design and focuses our MMA strategy. Tim is also basically the most dangerous man in the world, so we have that going for us, which is nice.

We also have regular Fight! Magazine contributor, author, and Lieutenant Colonel in the Army, Kelly Crigger helping us out. Crigger doesn’t work for the company, but he believes in what we are doing and has been a phenomenal mentor. We’re hoping to rope him in fulltime when he retires, and since he is 107 years old, he should be due any day now.

Finally, although he doesn’t work for us, Lex McMahon, son of the late Ed McMahon, writes for us and does tons of projects with us to support the troops. He basically gets us in trouble all the time and keeps life interesting.

How did you get involved in the MMA apparel scene and what’s your connection to the sport?

Everyone in the company is athletically inclined and are all huge fans of the sport. Nick was nationally ranked in Judo, was a successful amateur boxer, and wrestled in high school and college. I wrestled in high school as well and did Muay Thai all through college. Both Nick and I competed regularly in “Military MMA” while we served. Crigger is one of the bigger authors in MMA. Tim is a top 185 pounder in the world. We definitely have an interest in the sport.

More than that though, and more importantly, we believe MMA saves lives on the battlefield. The fight nowadays in Iraq and Afghanistan is door to door. It’s very up close and personal and sometimes you can’t get the standoff to use your weapon. We wanted to play a bigger part in making MMA a day-to-day part of military life. When Nick met Tim, without sounding cheesy, he just believed in him, so we made a Tim Kennedy t-shirt. It was our first MMA shirt ever. So as the military side of the business started to take off, MMA was such a natural progression for us, and we had a stellar guy we wanted to support. It all just fit together, you know?

There just isn’t another sport more in line with the warrior ethos or that embodies the spirit of all of the people who work here more than MMA. It’s so very similar to what we did in the military. We all train – as I mentioned earlier we have an MMA style gym in our warehouse. So it’s not just a hobby to us or a business or some corporate diversification project like some other companies out there, it’s our passion. We live it, believe in it, and think we can save troops lives by helping to grow MMA in the military community.

Ranger Up has created some amazing T-shirt designs. Where does the inspiration come from?

The company is made up of Army Rangers, Special Forces, and Army Infantry guys (with some Marine help from Lex) so we get a lot of our inspiration from warriors or battles of the past. The Roman Legion, the Spartans, and Sun Tzu have all inspired shirts from us. We have a wall of ideas, ranging from Crazy Horse and the Sioux to British Knights to the Gurkhas (trust us, you want to Wikipedia those bad boys if you don’t know who they are). No matter what though, every shirt has meaning. They aren’t just patterns meant to attract jaeger-bomb-chugging frat boys with frosted tips. We put a lot of time into making sure the details are there, so if you are a student of history you enjoy the shirt even more, and if not, well they still just look cool. Overall though, we are big on the Warrior Spirit and Ethos. We want the military to be proud of what we put out.

Which MMA athletes do you currently sponsor and why?

This is going to sound simplistic and maybe harsh, but we sponsor only great guys who have served in the military, police or fire, or are truly patriotic and pro-military. We will not sponsor douchebags, even if they are popular douchebags. We’re not out trying to prove we’re the most extreme or the toughest or anything. We sponsor people who represent a love of country and a respect for the Armed Forces.

On our roster of athletes first and foremost is our friend, and partner, Tim Kennedy. He fights at 185lbs in Strikeforce. He stands for everything that is right about the American Military Man. When he wins, we all win. We are all looking forward to and hoping Tim gets a shot at the belt soon, he’s an absolute beast.

In the UFC, we sponsor Jorge Rivera, who served in the cavalry, Tim Credeur, a former Navy officer, and Brian Stann, a Marine and Silver Star recipient. All three of these guys are amazing human beings that deserve all the success in the world. Tim and Jorge, in addition to being kick ass fighters, helped us out this October with the Train the Troops Event we did for Marines in Southern California and Yuma, Arizona. Brian wanted to, but let a little thing like a new baby get in the way…we’re sure his wife would have understood!

We also sponsor about thirty up and coming fighters like Dale Hartt (UFC/WEC), Damien Stelly (Bellator), Andrew Chappelle, Kris McCray, Jon Walsh, Todd Vance and a host of other guys you’re going to know very soon.

What can we expect to see next from Ranger Up?

This is going to be a huge year for us. Things have started to tip. For years we were hounding people to give us a shot, and now we are really starting to get a lot of calls – people want to do hats for us, energy drinks, fight shorts, etc. We’re even talking about doing a beer! We’re excited, but we’re taking it slow and doing it right.

The coolest thing to happen recently is that we just got word that we will have 20 or so of our t-shirts featured in the forthcoming EA Sports MMA video game, in addition to being all over Tim Kennedy’s walk out gear. The guys and gals at EA have been awesome and we’re super psyched about it!

We’re also going to continue to do our Train the Troops events. We believe they make a huge difference and the athletes love giving back to the military community. We just got an inquiry from the British Government and we are planning a trip to Afghanistan to bring fighters to some of the remote bases.

Also, one of our good friends, a fighter we sponsor, just got told that he’s going to be on TUF. Since he and his team haven’t officially released it yet I won’t blow him up but we’re really proud of him and super psyched at the opportunity he has. He’s going to kick some major ass on that show.

We’re also partnering with Zac Robinson on a book where the proceeds will go to various military charities. You’d be amazed at the roster of fighters that have volunteered to be involved. You should be seeing that on shelves in April. We’ll keep you posted.

And of course, we are going to, you know…make some shirts and whatnot.

Any final words of wisdom?

I hate to give Nick any credit, because his enormous Italian head really doesn’t need to get any bigger, but the other day he bastardized Robert Frost and now we’re getting that shit put on a sign for the office, because it really is reflective of our personalities, our business, and what we’re trying to accomplish. So here goes:

“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I – I burned down the forest and created my own path, thus pissing everyone off, and that has made all the difference…” – Nick Palmisciano

Yeah, that about sums us up.