GLADIATOR MAGAZINE
March 2008
The Man Who Changed MMA Forever
by Todd Hester



In any endeavor, there comes an instant in time where one pivotal event can change everything forever. Frank Shamrock vs. Kevin Jackson was one such a moment for MMA.

The year was 1997 and mixed martial arts (then called no-holds-barred) was in serious trouble. It had been banned off cable television, most states didn?t allow events to be held in public arenas, Senator John McCain had led a personal crusade against it, and Nevada, the most influential athletic commission in the U.S. had taken the position that they would never approve it. If this wasn?t enough, the sport was suffering an athletic credibility as well.

The Ultimate Fighting Credibility Gap
Since 1993, the beginning of the UFC, the competitors were not what the U.S. public considered to be mainstream elite athletes. From the perspective of John Q. Public they were mostly screwball martial artists, tough-guy bouncers, and back alley brawlers. The general thinking was that if a genuine Olympic caliber athlete were ever to face a no-holds-barred star the fight would be over nearly instantly. That was the backdrop when a relatively unknown fighter named Frank Shamrock, popular in Japan but who had virtually never fought in the U.S., was matched up against wrestling superstar Kevin Jackson in UFC Ultimate Japan.

The World?s Greatest Grappler
It would be impossible to exaggerate the high regard Jackson was held in at the time by virtually every wrestler and grappler on Planet Earth. Simply said, Jackson was considered one of the elite all-time great athletes in the world in any sport. A two-time Michigan state champion and three-time All American for Louisiana State, Jackson completed his college career at Iowa State where he earned All-American honors as a runner-up in the 1987 NCAA tournament. But that was just the beginning. Continuing to train and improve, Jackson won the gold medal at the 1991 World Championships, the 1992 Olympics, and the 1995 World Championships. He also added three World Cup titles, two Pan American championships, and was named the 1991 US Olympic Committee Wrestler of the Year, the 1992 Amateur Wrestling News Man of the Year, and the 1995 USA Wrestling Freestyle Wrestler of the Year. After his competition career ended he would go on to be named coach of the USA Wrestling Team.

Shock Waves Jolt MMA
When news came that Jackson had accepted an invitation to compete in the UFC, it sent shock waves through the very core of the sport. Here, all conventional wisdom said, was a man who would dominate any fighter at any weight in any grappling-related contest. It went without saying that in a fringe ?spectacle? such as the UFC, not really even considered a sport at the time, that Jackson would win with ease and show just how limited and overmatched ?ultimate fighters? really were. What added to the certainty was that his opponent was not one of the top Brazilian jiu-jitsu stylists, who at that time were regarded as the NHB ?gold standard,? but rather the adopted younger brother of ex-UFC fighter Ken Shamrock, who had only been training for three years. Of all the people to carry the torch of MMA against the best wrestler, to this day, who has ever competed inside the Octagon, Frank Shamrock seemed perhaps the most unlikely.

A Troubled Past
For Frank Shamrock, however, at just the age of 22, having already lived a life of broken dreams and unfulfilled promise, just the fact that he had a roof over his head seemed a minor miracle. Compared to that, the prospect of facing the world?s greatest wrestler seemed somewhat minor.

Arrested at the age of 12 for the felony of throwing rocks at a train, Frank Shamrock (then Frank Juarez), had come from an extremely dysfunctional family. ?Me throwing rocks at that train was just a symptom of a very unhappy home life,? recalls Frank. ?After that happened I think I either consciously or unconsciously decided to keep getting into trouble until I was placed in foster care. They told me that is what would happen and that actually sounded pretty good to me.?

So at age 13, young Frank Juarez was moved to northern California and placed in the foster care of Bob Shamrock, with fellow foster-child Kenneth Wayne Kilpatrick. From the beginning, it was apparent that the two were very different. ?I always wanted to just hang out and have fun,? recalls Frank. ?Ken was more of the guy who was always training and competing and getting in people?s faces. Even later in life when we both started fighting, I always wanted to beat people with technique and artistry while Ken just wanted to beat people up.?

By the age of 17 Frank, very happy with Bob but still possessing a little bit of a wild streak, was an expecting father. He moved out of the house, tried different jobs but found he couldn?t support himself or his family, and by the age of 22 was basically homeless. The only person he knew who to turn to was Bob Shamrock. ?Bob is a great man,? says Frank. ?He?s the only person I consider to be my true father. He was always fair but also always tough. He told me that I could move back in but only if I had a job.? Brother Ken, having been fighting in Japan for Pancrase and just having competed in the first UFC had an idea. Why didn?t Frank try his hand at no-holds-barred fighting?

The Eight-Month Wonder of the World
With his brother as his trainer, Frank began training in Ken?s style of submission wrestling. After only eight months of training the call came in for Frank to go to Japan for his first fight. His first opponent was fighting legend Bas Rutten, who Frank amazingly beat via a majority decision. ?I didn?t really know what I was doing,? Frank recalls. ?I just remember trying to move around a lot so I didn?t get hit,? he laughs. Over the course of the next three years, fighting regularly in Japan, Frank faced some of the best fighters in the world including Funaki, Goes, Ito, Suzuki, Kondo, Lober, Gassaway, and Inoue, winning much more than he lost and gaining a reputation as a fierce competitor who was always in excellent shape.

When he signed to fight to fight Kevin Jackson in Ultimate Japan, a show produced by the Japanese under license to the UFC, nobody really thought he had a chance ? but Frank had other ideas. ?My wrestling coach at the time had competed against Kevin Jackson,? says Frank, ?and so I had a pretty good idea what to expect. I knew that wrestlers were great at takedowns and control but were clueless about submissions. They didn?t expect anyone to be able to attack from their back because that is when a wrestling match ends.?

At the start of the match Jackson was surprising aggressive on the feet, punching himself into takedown range where he clinched briefly and then took Frank to the mat. As he settled into a comfortable position, Frank trapped the right arm, swung his leg over Jackson?s head, and locked in the armbar, forcing Jackson to tap at just 17 seconds into the match. It was a shocking victory and it forever changed the public?s opinion about cagefighters being second-rate competitors unable to compete against Olympic-caliber athletes. From that moment on, ultimate fighting moved from the area of spectacle and into the realm of sport.

The Philosophy of Fighting
After the Jackson fight Frank would go undefeated for nearly two years before finally cementing his reputation as perhaps the greatest fighter in UFC with a memorable win over Tito Ortiz in 1999 when he led ?The Huntington Beach Bad Boy? into uncharted territory that Ortiz simply could not follow him into. Frank Shamrock kept the UFC afloat during the darkest days of the sport when there was no cable TV deals, no multi-million dollars sponsors and no Spike TV. This has led no other that Art Davie, the creator of the UFC, to call Frank Shamrock ?the greatest fighter in the history of the Octagon.?
But at the height of his fame and the pinnacle of his power, Frank Shamrock did the unthinkable ? he walked away from the UFC and into his own world. From 1999 until his comeback against Cesar Gracie in 2006, Frank Shamrock fought only a total of three times. Like Elvis, he had left the house and no amount of persuasion could talk him into coming back.
?During those 7 years I just felt that I needed to teach and train people not just about fighting but also about the transformational power of mixed martial arts and how it can help to improve you as a person,? says Frank. ?Not everyone can become a champion in the Octagon but everyone can get the mental and physical benefits of focus, discipline, sharing and self-control that training gives you. Martial arts basically saved my life and I wanted to share that with people and let them know that there was so much more to it than just fighting. That is something I just couldn?t do if I was always training for my next fight.?

The ProElite Connection
After those seven years of traveling the world, when Frank finally decided to compete again, he did so in spectacular fashion by signing with ProElite to fight Cesar Gracie in San Jose in 2006, a fight which Frank handily won and which set a North American attendance record of over 18,000 ? a mark that still stands to this day. The most surprising thing about this is that Frank Shamrock, the UFC?s greatest fighter ever, did it with another organization other than the UFC.

?What I realized,? Frank says in explanation, ?is that there is a certain brand and a certain philosophy that is important for me to promote. Without a doubt, the new UFC has done great things for the sport ? but they did it almost as an unintentional by-product of running it as a business solely to make money. I don?t see them as promoting the sport or the athletes but just rather the UFC. They have presented mixed martial arts in a way that isn?t compatible with my beliefs of what it really means and what it can actually do for people. When I signed with ProElite they were very interested in how I wanted to be promoted and presented and basically let me be me. Could I have made more money in the UFC? Without a doubt. But could I have fought for them and still been Frank Shamrock? I don?t think so.?

Cung Le and Beyond
Frank is currently set to return to the cage verses the wildly popular Cung Le in the San Francisco Bay area on March 29 in a fight which could very easily rival the attendance record of his previous ProElite match against Cesar Gracie. ?This will be a great fight,? says Frank. ?I expect Cung to come in a try to take me down and then hold me and I plan to make him pay dearly for every inch of real estate he grabs. I have a lot of confidence in what I can do, though, and I don?t expect him to be able to go the distance. This is one of those rare fights between two really popular athletes from the same area and so I expect there to be a lot of excitement and emotion in the arena. I?m really looking forward to it and I know Cung is to.?
After this match, Frank has some other things up his sleeve which, in typical Frank Shamrock fashion, borders on the mind-blowing. ?I would like to fight my brother Ken sometime in 2008,? he says. ?I?ve talked to Ken about it and we?ve agreed in principle to do. I love my brother but I definitely have some issues with him that need to be settled man-to-man. There?s been a lot of talk going back and forth and I want to take care of things once and for all. We?re both warriors and we both put a high regard on pride and principle and this is sometimes how warriors settle things. I see it as the biggest form of respect we can give each other. Once we?ve done that then we can go back to being brothers.?

A Way to a Means
?Martial arts didn?t just teach me now to fight,? Franks says. ?It taught me how to live. I don?t know where I?d be without it but it would probably be behind the walls of a prison or a cemetery. What I?ve learned I?d like everyone to know. You are not helpless against the tides of fate. You can consciously change your life for the better and go in the direction you want to go. Whether it?s fighting, business, relationships or whatever ? martial arts can make a positive difference for anyone.?