Question: What do Frank Shamrock and the Gracie family have in common?
Apart from being dynamic, revolutionary, ground-breaking fighters who enjoy legendary status in the World of mixed-martial-arts that is…
Answer: Absolutely everyone is perennially pontificating over when they will next participate in active competition.
Thankfully, against all expectations, Friday night will herald the conclusion to that query after Cesar Gracie challenged Shamrock to a bout in San Jose, California – that has been signed, sealed and is only lacking in the delivery.
Until the turn of the year, the contest had been halted by the illegality of MMA in the ‘Golden State’ where both fighters reside. But new legislation passed in California in December has given the green light to the fight finally taking place, much to the delight of Shamrock, who said: “All of a sudden MMA became legal in California, so we can all go to work now”.
While last year displayed the power the internet can have in promoting a fight (for all the wrong reasons), when Boston police officer Sean Gannon’s scrap with street fighter ‘Kimbo’ Slice lead to the former winning a UFC contract – the World Wide Web seems to have had a large hand in creating the first match-up between the Shamrock and Gracie clans in ten years.
Cesar, arguably the best instructor to emerge from the Gracie tribe, directly challenged Shamrock to a MMA match via the medium of the ‘net. Despite his obvious surprise at receiving the purposefully provoking proposition, Shamrock admitted that he is delighted to finally follow in his older brother’s footsteps and test himself against a member of the first family of fighting.
He said: “The fight is born from the internet. I can’t remember whether I first found out about it through e-mail or a message board but he wanted to fight me and issued a direct challenge. It is ridiculous! But I have always wanted to fight a Gracie”.
While the Brazilians hit the headlines in 1993 on the back of Royce’s victory in the inaugural Ultimate Fighting Championships, Shamrock began his training a year later under the tutelage of brother, Ken. Within eight heady months, Frank had progressed quickly enough to compete in his first MMA fight in Pancrase. Shamrock’s debut bout was to be against none other than Bas Rutten.
“We got it going on quickly and I trained for six months in the USA before I moved to Japan for two months before my first fight, said Shamrock. “That came in a tournament and then after that I fought every six weeks for a couple of years. They didn’t tell me I’d be fighting Bas when they put me in there. They just threw him at me. But I loved fighting him. Bas had a funny psychological game that he played. It was kind of a self-affirmation thing because he would say to himself during the fights, “I am so strong”. I’d just be standing there thinking, “What did he just say?” It’s an odd strategy, but it certainly worked for him”.
A majority decision saw Shamrock defeat Rutten and begin a two year career in Japan which saw him crowned the fourth ‘King of Pancrase’. One year after leaving the far east, the 33-year-old signed for the UFC and quickly captured the Middleweight Championship, taking only 16 seconds to defeat Kevin Jackson. Title defences against Igor Zinoviev, Jermey Horn and John Lober followed, before Shamrock caused Tito Ortiz to tap-out to strikes in what was essentially his career-defining fight. It was to be Frank’s last outing in the UFC, but the man, who at the time was touted as ‘The World’s Best Pound For Pound Fighter’, never regretted leaving the USA’s biggest promotion on top.
“How many times can you climb Everest?” questioned Shamrock. “You don’t want to repeat something if you are not having fun or not being challenged. It’s not worth it. I liked the UFC and it was a growing game when I was there. Everyone was trying to work out how they could beat everybody else. I was from a different outlook as I had already mixed up my game. I treated the UFC as an experiment and I really enjoy it. I think everything happens for a reason and I didn’t have anything left to prove in the UFC. I didn’t really care about it at all. I have obsessions with doing something. I wanted to be the best at fighting. I gave so much effort and energy to fighting, that once the desire went away there was nothing else I could do”.
Since then, Shamrock has only fought twice – against Elvis Sinosic in K-1 and versus Brian Pardoe for World Extreme Cagefighting in 2003. The decision to battle ‘The Pain Inducer’ who fought primarily for second-tier organisation Rage In The Cage caused much consternation in the ‘fight game’, but as Shamrock explains, he wanted another challenge and was tired of waiting for a promised meeting with Ricardo Arona to take off.
He said: “I had originally been approached by Arona for a fight in a co-promotion with WEC and we were going to do a show at the Mohegan Sun in Las Vegas. But I broke my leg in training and that put an end to that as the deal with the casino ran out. I was then given the chance to fight for a vacant Light-Heavyweight Title or wait it out again and fight Arona. So I fought Brian. I fight once in a while and it’s fun and it becomes a big deal and then it’s on to something else. I don’t want to be bored and I don’t want to bore the people either, because if you fight all the time then they won’t appreciate you. The last thing I want is for them all to be shouting “Get him out of there!””
Shamrock’s most recent ‘comeback’ was for the U-style pro-wrestling promotion in Japan in November. He fought Daisuke Nakamura and “put a real good smacking on him. At the beginning he whacked me right in the mouth, so I got all pissed off. I did some nice moves though and I slapped to the head, punched to the body and kneed him. I had such a good time that I am thinking of doing more of them and I like the old style. The stiff style. It is really close to a real fight but if somebody gets whacked along the way, then it is funny – or unfortunate depending on how you want to look at it. That’s the essence of wrestling though as you are telling a really complicated, dangerous story. You get a strike to the head, but that is part of the story. It is disturbing and entertaining at the same time”.
Never one to back down from competing with a larger man, Shamrock revealed that he trained with 250lb Heavyweight “monster” Josh Barnett while in Japan. Shamrock spent his entire career fighting at 185lb, often taking on opponents with a significant weight advantage over him. As his mass only reached a maximum of 191lbs, Shamrock was never forced to cut weight. But he admitted his concerns over the worrying trend of fighters taking ever increasing liberties in order to make weight for an upcoming contest.
“I have never cut weight and I just showed up and fought, said Shamrock. “The only way you should have to cut weight is for some un-natural reason, for example if you have an extra leg. It doesn’t make any sense to stress and strain and dehydrate your body and who is to say if fighting at a lower weight class makes you better, because weight and strength are two different things”.
However, the veteran has a novel idea on how and when promotions should hold their weigh-in’s.
He said: “How about you have to make weight on the way to the ring? And you step on a little scale and they call out your weight and you are either on, or you are not. And if you are not, then they dock you a percentage of your pay, or make it a non title fight if that is at stake. After all, you are supposed to be a professional and you are supposed to be at your weight”.
Finally, in addition to putting the final touches to his fight with Cesar Gracie, Shamrock is a man with a plethora of activities lined up for 2006. He has opened a new training school and is producing two new instructional videos – one for his teachers and one for fighters. A revamped website has been constructed and a new video game will be launched this year. Subsequently, there is now no need for fans to dream about his return, or to repeat that question. Frank is back.
The main card for the event entitled ‘Shamrock vs. Gracie’ which will take place at the HP Pavilion with a show time of 19.30 is as follows:
Cung Le vs. Mike Altman
Josh Thomson vs. Clayton Guida
Gilbert Melendez vs. Harris Sarmiento
Eugene Jackson vs. Jorge Ortiz
Mike Kyle vs. Krzysztof Soszynski
