FRANK SHAMROCK
MMA RECORD: 23-10-2
BORN: Santa Monica, California
5’10, 185 pounds
Learning under his brother Ken Shamrock in the Lion’s Den, Frank Shamrock would quickly become a master in the art of fighting himself. Debuting in Panrase in late 1994, he was able to score a decision win over Bas Rutten. Shamrock kept learning the ropes in Pancrase and 4 fights later and he was able to become the provisional King of Pancrase after defeating Minoru Suzuki, after Bas Rutten could not continue in the tourney due to injury.
Shamrock would continue to improve as a fighter in the organization, rounding out his skills. He’d go on to be 7-4 in the rest of his Pancrase bouts, before leaving elsewhere to compete. His philosophical, introspective and traditional martial arts mentally in many ways was leading him into what would be great success to come.
After a fantastic battle with Enson Inoue in Vale Tudo Japan, an opportunity for Shamrock to compete in the Ultimate Fighting Championship arose for the middleweight (no called light-heavyweight title). Shamrock made the most of his UFC debut and defeated American Kevin Jackson in 14 seconds via armbar. His next fight would be a brutal slam victory in a blistering 22 seconds against Igor Zinoviev. Shamrock was able to defeat Jeremy Horn and avenge his loss to John Lober in the UFC right afterwards. His aggression, technique and will to win were very apparent, and Shamrock was one of the most complete and dangerous fighters in the game, as well as a 4 time defending champion.
After much hype was being built around up and coming superstar Tito Ortiz, a match with Frank Shamrock was able to be set up between the two rivals. In a very interesting fight were Ortiz was winning early, Shamrock used his superior conditioning, game-planning to begin to turn things around and by round 4 finished off Ortiz via strikes on the ground.
Shamrock would give up his title and temporarily retired from the game, only to return the next year to take on Elvis Sinosic and defeat the Austrailian in the K-1 organization. About 2 and half years later, Shamrock would take on Bryan Pardoe in the WEC via armbar. But Shamrock was not competing on a regular basis at this time, and came back take on Cesar Gracie 3 years later, and won via knockout.
A year later Shamrock would begin competing more regularly in the now defunct Elite-XC and then Strikeforce organizations. Shamrock lost his fight against Renzo Gracie via disqualification from illegal strikes to the back of head, but would return to action and score a big win over Phil Baroni via choke, after displaying some solid striking and BJJ skills.
Although his next 2 bouts were losses via TKO to tough strikers Cung Le and Nick Diaz, Shamrock’s legacy as one of the top fighters in the history of the game remains intact. If Shamrock was able to achieve the success he did in the UFC in the post TUF era, he would be an even larger star and would have been very interesting. He was defending his belt 5 times and ruling the sport at a time where there were very few eyes watching. Nonetheless the ones that did marveled and his work.
HONOR ROLL
Provisional King of Pancrase
First UFC Middleweight Champion (later changed to the UFC Light Heavyweight title)
First WEC Light Heavyweight Champion
Former WKC Submission Champion
Former Contenders Light Heavyweight Champion
First Strikeforce Middleweight Champion
