TULSA – On Saturday, March 6, 2010, Jake Rosholt returned to his former stomping ground of Oklahoma to help steady the course of his young MMA career. Rosholt is a legend in the Sooner State due to his storied wrestling career at Oklahoma State University. While at OSU, Rosholt won three NCAA Division I titles, one Big 12 title, and was named an NCAA Division I All-American all four years of his college career.
Since crossing over into MMA in Junly 2007, Rosholt has fought at middleweight (185-pounds), but on Saturday night he met light-heavyweight (205-pounds) MMA veteran "Rowdy" Rudy Lindsey at a catchweight of 195-pounds in the featured fight at XFL – March Badness at the SpiritBank Event Center in suburban Tulsa, Oklahoma.
The fight began with Rosholt quickly executing a textbook double-leg takedown that violently planted Lindsey on his back. Once on the mat, Rosholt landed hard shots and worked for a guard pass, as Lindsey tried to survive by hanging on with a half-guard. After passing to mount, Lindsey tried to turn away, and Rosholt fluidly moved and controlled from the north-south position. Rosholt then moved to the side of his turtled opponent, where he landed knees and punches to Lindsey’s ribs, before jumping on to his back. From there, Rosholt pancaked Lindsey to the mat with perfect back control and locked in the fight-ending Rear Naked Choke at 2:37 of Round 1.
This bout marked Rosholt’s first appearance since being released by the UFC last November. After mixed success in MMA’s premier organization, which included a "Submission of the Night" award-winning performance over Chris Leben at UFC 102 and a pair of losses to Dan Miller and Kendall Grove, the UFC decided to let Rosholt go and gain more fight experience in smaller shows before returning to the big show.
After making his MMA debut in July 2007, Rosholt strung together four straight stoppage victories in the state of Oklahoma before first being noticed by Zuffa, which owns both the UFC and WEC. Zuffa then signed Rosholt to compete in their WEC middleweight division and he made his debut for the organization in November 2008 at WEC 36. He ended up defeating previously unbeaten Nissen Osterneck via TKO in his promotional debut for the WEC, but Zuffa decided to do away with their light-heavyweight, middleweight, and welterweight divisions shortly after that event.
Rosholt’s contract ended up transferring over to the UFC and he was thrown right in with the wolves at UFC Fight Night 17 in February 2009, where he lost to the much more experienced Miller, who was a former IFL and CFFC middleweight champion. Rosholt would return at UFC 102 in August 2009 to submit Leben with an Arm-Triangle Choke, only to lose to The Ultimate Fighter 3 champion Grove at UFC 106 three months later. Now Rosholt, who has been studying jiu-jitsu at Cobra Kai in Las Vegas under Marc Laimon, is taking full advantage of his opportunity to go back to his roots and integrate his world-class wrestling skills and MMA game outside of the UFC. He passed his first test with flying colors on Saturday night with his quick submission win over Lindsey.