When Peter Jeffrey started the Tri-Force MMA gym in Pawtucket in 2009, the financial security of mixed martial arts was not something to rest one’s future on.
While the sport did eventually become a multibillion-dollar industry, thanks to the explosion in popularity of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, or UFC, in recent years, Jeffrey says he could have never initially seen that success coming.
Now, the Smithfield native is looking back at the humble beginnings of Tri-Force, and while the present is great, the future is looking even better.
“I didn’t mean to even start a school at first,” he said. “Back in the early-to-mid-2000s, we would have to travel to Boston for striking, Leominster for wrestling, North Providence for Brazilian jiu-jitsu, and all over the place trying to get training in for all aspects of MMA. The gym was created out of necessity for my training [as a professional fighter].
“There just wasn’t one place to learn it all. The classes [at Tri-Force] happened very organically after that,” Jeffrey said. “I didn’t know it would grow to this extent.”
The “professor,” as he is known around the gym, says that he initially started holding classes once a week on Mondays after friends and fellow fighters requested that he do so. The gym space was much more modest, too, before Jeffrey moved the operation to a larger facility within the same Conant Street building last year.
The current Tri-Force location, which boasts more than 8,000 square feet of mat space in a 15,000-square-foot facility, is the largest MMA gym in Rhode Island.
It now holds classes seven days a week, with a full schedule Monday through Friday. Jeffrey says more than 500 people take classes there, about a fifth of which are children. Over the years, the school has graduated 20 black belts in jiu-jitsu, most of whom still teach at Tri-Force.
And in recent years, several of the gym’s fighters have made their way to the UFC, the premier MMA organization in the world.
Jeffrey says that Tri-Force MMA almost accidentally fell into becoming the hub for Rhode Island’s MMA scene. His passion for MMA started in 2003, when his brother Keith showed him early “no-holds-barred” fights on tape. He eventually turned professional himself, and went 5-5 from 2005 to 2012, establishing Tri-Force MMA in the interim.
By the time he opened the gym and retired from professional fighting, MMA had already started becoming a global, financially viable sport. For reference, the UFC secured a crucial television deal with Fox Sports in 2011 before it sold for $4.4 billion to talent agency WME-IMG in 2016.
“I went to school for music,” Jeffrey said. “I started training MMA because I needed something physical to do. Never would I have guessed in a million years it would have worked out like this.”
Jeffrey says Tri-Force is now in a position to expand outside of Pawtucket. He’s already a part-owner of a Tri-Force BJJ affiliate in Florida, alongside UFC veteran Chuck “Cold Steel” O’Neil.
Jeffrey says he plans on opening another location in the South County area “in the next couple of years.”
Leon Davis, a longtime student, professional fighter and teacher at Tri-Force, similarly plans to open a school in Hadley, Mass., in the near future.
OWNER: Peter Jeffrey
TYPE OF BUSINESS: Mixed martial arts school
LOCATION: 181 Conant St., Pawtucket
EMPLOYEES: 17
YEAR FOUNDED: 2009
ANNUAL REVENUE: WND
