Evan "Coach" Bates
Meet Evan "Coach" Bates, husband and father of 3 now retired Pro Mixed Martial Artist (MMA). While in his fighting days Bates was an absolute animal decimating opponents with his grinding wrestling, and finishing them with brutal strikes or his very slick Jiu Jitsu game. While Evan is no longer competing in MMA he still makes time out of his very Busy schedule to coach and fight in Jiu Jitsu competitions when time allows.
Evan began his journey into combat sports as a wrestler for Port Jervis High School, and later began training Jiu Jitsu and Muay Thai, while simultaneously coaching the wrestling team at his local high school, really giving back to the community that helped mold him. Once Evan retired from MMA after an incredible career, (featured twice as a main event)! Today Evan Bates continues to be an incredible athlete, natural leader and outstanding member of the community. Evan is an English Teacher, Youth Director and Deacon at Milford Bible Church, and he runs the kids Jiu Jitsu program at Tristate MMA/BJJ. The Tristate Kids Jiu Jitsu program while Under Evan tutelage have won 2 NAGA Silver Cups, an incredible feat if you consider the fact that Tristate is just one Academy and they were competing against franchises with multiple schools and many kids competing from each school. Not to mention that Bates still shows up for sparing to help get up and coming fighter ready for their fights. Now if you thought that all of this was a lot, Evan still makes time for his wonderful wife Melissa and to raise his three wonderful children (all of which are Jiu Jitsu champions under his guidance). Evan Bates can boast (though he never does), that he lead Tristate MMA/BJJ through its longest undefeated streak in the gyms history.
Evan is a great person, he is a close personal friend of mine, one of the first friends I made after moving to Pennsylvanian from NY. Evan is well known and liked in the community when ever we are out and about and our children are playing together, people are always stopping to say hi to Evan. To sum it up, great man, great fighter, great friend, and integral part of his community. Every town would be lucky to have an Evan Bates!
In the above video, you can see Bates was able to drag his opponent to the ground and tenderize his opponent with punches before locking in the Rear Naked Choke.
Evan has given me permission to use this video and write this article.