Cohen "The Rooster" Bane is twenty years old, has been training for about two years, and is about to take his ninth amateur fight. He plans to turn pro straight after.

He comes into Synergy FC 30 off the first real setback of his career — a title loss to Tyler Janes at the Lake of the Ozarks card, in a fight where he dropped his opponent with the first punch he threw and then lost the thread. He's unusually clear-eyed about it: he knows exactly which split-second decision cost him, doesn't take anything away from the win, and calls this a bounce-back.

Cohen talks about coming up as a wrestler in Springfield from seventh grade, getting tired of losing in high school and driving to Drury and Nixa to get beaten up by college guys until he wasn't. He talks about Team Fusion, head coach Brad Montgomery, and a Springfield fight scene that's grown fast — helped along by Synergy returning to town and by teammate Julius Walker reaching the UFC.

He explains why he keeps travelling for fights when he could stay home: "You could beat as many cans as you want in your hometown. If you're not travelling and trying to fight the best of the best, what's the point?" He wants to be known as someone who never cherry-picked an opponent.

And he explains where "The Rooster" came from — a friend, an Alice in Chains song, his stepdad's tattoo, and a rooster now permanently on his ribs.

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