Published on various sites, December 2010
Prime Ken Shamrock officially lost two legitimate fights, against 1 robbery, 2 worked losses and 24 victories, of which 22 were via submission. Add the UFC Superfight title, 5 successive UFC title fights, a Pancrase tournament win & the King of Pancrase title, and that’s an impressive record.
Old Ken Shamrock has gone 4-10 since 2000, and he’s hit the canvas more times than Rembrandt.
Now, when the younger guard like UFC champions Tito Ortiz, Kazushi Sakuraba and Rich Franklin were dealing out the ‘L’s', one could feel admiration for the old warrior losing to younger and fresher titlists with a torn ACL and plethora of injuries. But when it is Mike “The Rhino” Bourke dishing out the defeats – a man with a now 10-16 win/loss record – there is nothing a fight fan could possibly feel other than the desire to either vomit, break a window, or swear profusely at old women.
The sad thing is, Ken dropped Bourke with a lead right hand, and then lost via injury after suffering a tear in the ensuing scramble. This is not surprising; looking at Ken these days, you expect a creak every time he moves. He’s more removed from his prime than Mick Jagger is. But of course, the sad thing is that given the loss can be considered a freak accident, Ken will undoubtedly continue on his retirement tour. And we, his fans, will have to sit through more shambolic car wrecks like the Ross Clifton (RIP), Jonathon Ivey and Mike Bourke fights.
And given that he once held the title of “The World’s Most Dangerous Man”, there are few stories more sobering in the MMA world than his continued charade. As a fan of Ken, it saddens me.
Showing posts with label ken shamrock. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ken shamrock. Show all posts
Wednesday, 16 February 2011
Friday, 3 September 2010
The Negativity of Fight Fans
The Importance of Being Positive - and the detriment of the sport due to ceaseless negativity of the new age fans....
Sherdog and forum posters' fighter hatred - read, and see if you are guilty of this.....
Examples: Frank Mir, Shane Carwin, Diego Sanchez
Mir;
Mir vs Lesnar 3 would be a contest between two fighters with many detractors. However, with Lesnar I can understand it - the stereotypical american jock bully with the mind of an unpleasant, overgrown child. But Mir gets as much if not more hatred just for some of the innocuous statements he makes in his extremely forthright interviews.
Sherdog howls with rage as Mir opines that, yes - at his best, he feels he could beat Fedor (I personally dont think so). And he claims to be upset by the excuses made for Nogueira after Mir handily beat him. As a fighter, of course he thinks and says these things!
Mir is a 2x world champion (to me, brock was interim champ) and trains daily to get back up there. Of COURSE he believes that at his best he could beat the best - that belief is what got him there in the first place! Of COURSE he makes these claims - he believes them, and wants everyone else to believe them too!
In short, fighters have to have tremendous self-belief, and in the case of world champions, that belief is largely vindicated.
If Mir did not believe he could avenge ufc 100, or beat Fedor, why would he even bother training, and spending his life trying to regain his place at the top? And that makes it disgraceful 'shit talking' when he offers his frank opinions? That makes him a <-->? (fill in the blank with all the vile shit sherdoggers say about him, just for answering questions with confidence)
----------------------------
Carwin;
Shane Carwin gave an interview in which he claimed he had 'the tools' to beat Fedor. Sherdog erupted in rage at Shane 'shit talking', overlooking the fact that Shane may or may not believe it, but can hardly give a potential opponent a sign of weakness, or show weakness before his fellow heavyweights?
Not to mention the endless 'Shanes Size' threads that pop up everywhere, earing him more hatred. Jesus, people - the UFC hypes him, their hype machines is ridiculous, and always has been!!!
And to me - raised in northern england where banter is daily and relentless in order to raise men who can shrug off pisstaking, understand humour and show emotional maturity - to me holding grudges on such slight matters shows that many sherdoggers have serious problems, and could not function in the real world.
--------------------------------
Stevia Sanchez;
Now, there is a Diego Sanchez thread where Diego makes a statement that he believes himself to be BJ Penn's Kryptonite. The TS claims that such 'shit talk' makes it impossible to be his fan.
Well boohoo. Boo fucking hoo. Such a disparaging, disrespectful shit talker is Diego, to have the cheek to tell an interviewer that he feels he can beat his next opponent. That he is not going in there expecting to lose. How dare he.
Disgraceful.
-------------------------------
This concept is clearly beyond many, but I will try.
Fighters NEED uber self belief. Fighters NEED to show their confidence.
And fighters CANNOT show weakness to their opponents.
In the case of Mir, you have a fighter who gives forthright and very honest, unflinching interviews where he gives his opinion on his past and future opponents, his own ability, and often makes very good points, yet sherdoggers use every little statement about how he can beat Mr X as a reason to hold a lifelong grudge. How DARE he have that belief, and share it with us!
You idiots take comments out of context and use them as an excuse to hold lifelong grudges, to shit all over an elite fighter's entire career, just because he feels he can beat your favourite fighter, or that Mr X's ground game isn't as good as his etc.
They forge a career at the top level, only to have it shat on for making one candid statement in a typically PR filled interview of a fighter.
How should they respond?
Interviewer: "So Frank, at your best could you beat Fedor?"
Frank Mir: "Of course not, fool! The motorcycle crash flushed my physical prime down the toilet, and even at my best I couldn't defeat the great Fedor - he submitted big Tim a whole ten seconds faster than I did. Plus my on paper best win over Nogueira was when Nog was recovering from staph - Fedor beat a perfectly healthy, happy Nog twice over in Pride, where the best fighters fought."
See what I mean? That is what many sherdoggers seem to want him to say.... at the very least, they get pissed off and E-wail miserably if he contradicts any of the above.
Please, stop polluting sherdog and the rest of the fight forums just because 80% of you have axes to grind for the rest of your lives, just because a guy has the audacity to say he could beat your no.1 fighter in an interview. Stop using it to shit on the guy and his career.
How boring would it be if every fighter in MMA and K1 lived by such stringent rules and philosophy.... no 'shit talk'? No hostility in the fight game? No controversial statements? No colourful personalities?
Please, try to be an adult. Even if (as many here are) you're an American 15 year old. Pretend you are English, anything. Show some emotional maturity. Please. Stop polluting sherdog and the other forums with your endless, hateful crap.
Post this across the forums, for the sake of humanity....
It's been emotional.
Fletch
Sherdog and forum posters' fighter hatred - read, and see if you are guilty of this.....
Examples: Frank Mir, Shane Carwin, Diego Sanchez
Mir;
Mir vs Lesnar 3 would be a contest between two fighters with many detractors. However, with Lesnar I can understand it - the stereotypical american jock bully with the mind of an unpleasant, overgrown child. But Mir gets as much if not more hatred just for some of the innocuous statements he makes in his extremely forthright interviews.
Sherdog howls with rage as Mir opines that, yes - at his best, he feels he could beat Fedor (I personally dont think so). And he claims to be upset by the excuses made for Nogueira after Mir handily beat him. As a fighter, of course he thinks and says these things!
Mir is a 2x world champion (to me, brock was interim champ) and trains daily to get back up there. Of COURSE he believes that at his best he could beat the best - that belief is what got him there in the first place! Of COURSE he makes these claims - he believes them, and wants everyone else to believe them too!
In short, fighters have to have tremendous self-belief, and in the case of world champions, that belief is largely vindicated.
If Mir did not believe he could avenge ufc 100, or beat Fedor, why would he even bother training, and spending his life trying to regain his place at the top? And that makes it disgraceful 'shit talking' when he offers his frank opinions? That makes him a <-->? (fill in the blank with all the vile shit sherdoggers say about him, just for answering questions with confidence)
----------------------------
Carwin;
Shane Carwin gave an interview in which he claimed he had 'the tools' to beat Fedor. Sherdog erupted in rage at Shane 'shit talking', overlooking the fact that Shane may or may not believe it, but can hardly give a potential opponent a sign of weakness, or show weakness before his fellow heavyweights?
Not to mention the endless 'Shanes Size' threads that pop up everywhere, earing him more hatred. Jesus, people - the UFC hypes him, their hype machines is ridiculous, and always has been!!!
And to me - raised in northern england where banter is daily and relentless in order to raise men who can shrug off pisstaking, understand humour and show emotional maturity - to me holding grudges on such slight matters shows that many sherdoggers have serious problems, and could not function in the real world.
--------------------------------
Stevia Sanchez;
Now, there is a Diego Sanchez thread where Diego makes a statement that he believes himself to be BJ Penn's Kryptonite. The TS claims that such 'shit talk' makes it impossible to be his fan.
Well boohoo. Boo fucking hoo. Such a disparaging, disrespectful shit talker is Diego, to have the cheek to tell an interviewer that he feels he can beat his next opponent. That he is not going in there expecting to lose. How dare he.
Disgraceful.
-------------------------------
This concept is clearly beyond many, but I will try.
Fighters NEED uber self belief. Fighters NEED to show their confidence.
And fighters CANNOT show weakness to their opponents.
In the case of Mir, you have a fighter who gives forthright and very honest, unflinching interviews where he gives his opinion on his past and future opponents, his own ability, and often makes very good points, yet sherdoggers use every little statement about how he can beat Mr X as a reason to hold a lifelong grudge. How DARE he have that belief, and share it with us!
You idiots take comments out of context and use them as an excuse to hold lifelong grudges, to shit all over an elite fighter's entire career, just because he feels he can beat your favourite fighter, or that Mr X's ground game isn't as good as his etc.
They forge a career at the top level, only to have it shat on for making one candid statement in a typically PR filled interview of a fighter.
How should they respond?
Interviewer: "So Frank, at your best could you beat Fedor?"
Frank Mir: "Of course not, fool! The motorcycle crash flushed my physical prime down the toilet, and even at my best I couldn't defeat the great Fedor - he submitted big Tim a whole ten seconds faster than I did. Plus my on paper best win over Nogueira was when Nog was recovering from staph - Fedor beat a perfectly healthy, happy Nog twice over in Pride, where the best fighters fought."
See what I mean? That is what many sherdoggers seem to want him to say.... at the very least, they get pissed off and E-wail miserably if he contradicts any of the above.
Please, stop polluting sherdog and the rest of the fight forums just because 80% of you have axes to grind for the rest of your lives, just because a guy has the audacity to say he could beat your no.1 fighter in an interview. Stop using it to shit on the guy and his career.
How boring would it be if every fighter in MMA and K1 lived by such stringent rules and philosophy.... no 'shit talk'? No hostility in the fight game? No controversial statements? No colourful personalities?
Please, try to be an adult. Even if (as many here are) you're an American 15 year old. Pretend you are English, anything. Show some emotional maturity. Please. Stop polluting sherdog and the other forums with your endless, hateful crap.
Post this across the forums, for the sake of humanity....
It's been emotional.
Fletch
Sunday, 13 September 2009
Anderson Silva can surpass the Gracie’s, Shamrock’s, Coleman’s and Ortiz’s of UFC history
With a jaw dropping, rip-roaring performance at UFC 101, Anderson Silva placed himself in a pantheon of sporting greats whose finest performances in their era of dominance wowed and amazed the world. It was spectacularly magnificent.
Only 224 days had passed since Forrest Griffin held the UFC Light-Heavyweight championship of the world. While Silva himself is a belt holder, he was coming up a weight division to face a world champion calibre athlete who reportedly cuts from heavyweight proportions. Yet despite sound logic pointing to a close and even fight, given Anderson’s pedigree and Griffin’s lack of vicious knockout power, The Spider delivered an artistic and humbling display that included three knockdowns, a hands down Silva stance, disdainful punch evasion bordering on poetry in motion, and climaxed with the outclassed Forrest slumping to the mat unconscious after a deft counter punch, a right handed jab by the back-peddling Brazilian. Yes, he was moving backwards.
As a writer, it is hard to avoid grandiloquence when discussing Anderson Silva in the second half of his career. Even more so, given that I was not personally a fan until his display at the one hundred and first numbered Ultimate Fighting Championship event. As an unashamed Frank Shamrock super-fan, I was dismayed when the new kid on the block surpassed ‘The Legend’s’ record five UFC Middleweight title fight victories in April, with his lacklustre defence against Thales Leites at UFC 97. What was worse was the tepid pace of the fight; in winning to a chorus of boos, Anderson merely gave supporters of the imperious Fedor Emelianenko or the king of the welterweights, Georges St. Pierre, more wood to throw on the ever burning fire of The Great Lb 4 Lb Debate. But in his humiliating destruction of an elite fighter who competes at a weight twenty pounds heavier, The Spider arguably silenced all doubters among those who see lb 4 lb as a legitimate exercise in judging fighters of the time. It would be the equivalent of seeing GSP go up to middleweight and not only beat, but also clown Dan Henderson or Rich Franklin and knock out one of the former UFC and Pride champions respectively within three and a half minutes. It was the equivalent of Lyoto Machida facing former Heavyweight king and recent Interim Champion Frank Mir at a 235lbs catchweight, and doing the same. It is frightening to think what Anderson Silva can further achieve in the Octagon.
Anderson broke another record against Leites at UFC 97. He won his ninth consecutive UFC fight, an unmatched feat, which he followed up with his outstanding dissection of Forrest for a 10-0 record of perfection. It made me remember Frank Shamrock, in the wake of his own glorious victory over Tito Ortiz in a defence of the old 199lbs title. Back then in 1999, Frank claimed that monetary rewards in MMA were not enough for the risks they take, and he told UFC to call him when they had a middleweight (now Light-Heavyweight) who could beat him. Sadly, Frank never did return, but that was an occurring theme with dominant fighters, or those on the verge of dominance. I realised that Anderson alone has the potential to truly make a decade his own, so that nostalgic fans look back and remember a years-long period as ‘The Silva Era.’
In this, it is true Anderson has his rivals in that capacity. Friend and sparring partner Lyoto Machida looks truly daunting at the top of the light-heavyweight pile, he himself on a 7-0 UFC tear, and of course GSP at welterweight is carving his own legend. With Machida the only impediment in Anderson Being All That He Can Be at 205lbs, one wishes that the two fall out bitterly in order to see a dream fight to make fight fans salivate. But while the other two are, like Silva, head and shoulders above the rest of their weight class, of the three only Anderson has stepped up a weight and made an elite fighter and consensus top 4 warrior who recently held the big belt, look like an amateurish tomato can in comparison. The Spider is surely only a few more similar displays from surpassing the fighters from UFC history who have looked poised to make a whole era truly theirs, unshared and exclusive, only to fall at the final hurdle.
The first ever was Royce Gracie. In beating Art Jimmerson, a green Ken Shamrock and Gerard Gordeau to win the UFC 1 tournament, he cemented his legend. He followed it up by handily winning UFC’s 2 and 4. But after meeting former foe, rival Ken Shamrock who was now reigning King of Pancrase and MMA tournament winner in his own right, and surviving a 36 minute time limit to earn a ‘draw’, Royce left the UFC with an 11-1-1 slate. He would not return for eleven years, for a one-off match with welterweight ruler Matt Hughes. Though Royce was the undoubted king of UFC in 1993 and 1994, his abrupt departure left unanswered questions (does Shamrock have his number? Are fighters learning how to beat him?), and Gracie sacrificed the chance to maybe establish himself forevermore as the most dominant fighter the UFC will ever know. As fantastic as his record and achievements are, the latter plaudit will now probably never be the case.
The second was Ken Shamrock. After going 1-1 at UFC 1, and being introduced to Brazilian Jiu Jitsu in the harshest way, Ken fought a further 8 times in UFC in the 90s, matches that carved his legend. His form on paper in that post-UFC 1 period would be 5-1-2, but only on paper, effectively 7-1 in reality. The two ‘draws’ were due to special time limits introduced, and with no judges to award him his win, Ken’s winning record suffered. And the sole loss was ironically by split judges’ decision, in an incredibly even and equally boring rematch with Dan Severn, whom Ken had defeated to become champion.
Out of the men who had best chance to make an era their own, Ken perhaps had the best chance, which he arguably squandered. The single loss from eight high profile fights, including five title fights, should have been followed up on. He won two fights at the crazy, infamous UFC 3, but after Gracie forfeited his own semi-final, Ken refused to fight in the final and risk worsening his knee injury with no loss to avenge. He won a tournament and became a reigning champion in Japanese org Pancrase, which came in useful as a bargaining chip for a special UFC ‘Superfight’ with Royce. After that inconclusive outcome (which Ken saw as a moral victory, a win on all but paper) Ken remained in the Superfight slot, which became a means of having a reigning UFC openweight champion that the one-night tournament winners could face. Ken faced UFC 5 champion Dan Severn, whom he guillotine choked to submission in two minutes. He defended the belt in his second Superfight ‘draw’ against UFC 6 tournament winner and stable-mate Oleg Taktarov, and then beat Kimo Leopoldo more conclusively with a kneebar at UFC 8. Then in his fifth Superfight, things went wrong for Shamrock. After a thirty minute circling staredown, Severn was given the newly instated judges’ nod in his hometown. Ken fought once more in early UFC, giving his most explosive performance in a Ground and Pound massacre of Brian Johnston, but unfortunately broke his hand and had to withdraw from the tournament. With his contract in both UFC and Pancrase at an end, and the need to find a more lucrative career to fund his Lion’s Den fight team; given that MMA was increasingly being forced under the radar by politicians, Ken left the sport at his physical and fighting peak. Despite his later return, Shamrock could not compete with the younger champions of the day, and to date his record since 2000 is 4 wins and 8 losses.
Mark Coleman trained with Ken and the Lion’s Den, and later joined him in the UFC Hall of Fame. He burst onto the scene winning the UFC 10 and 11 tournaments using wrestling and formidable Ground and Pound, and as weight classes were introduced to the UFC, kept Shamrock’s title lineage going with a Superfight victory over Dan Severn that passed the torch to the official first UFC Heavyweight champion. In only six consecutive fights, The Hammer had claimed three separate UFC championship honours.
Yet that was as good as it got, at least in the UFC for Coleman. Losing to Maurice Smith (another Lion’s Den fighter) in his first defence, he went on to another three successive losses, including becoming a famous highlight reel KO to Pete Williams (yet another Lion’s Den fighter). Though Coleman went to Pride FC in Japan to win their openweight Grand Prix in 2000, his early UFC dominance was truly shattered as his suspect cardio was brought to harsh light.
Frank Shamrock left Pancrase for unified rules MMA, and after a debut loss to John Lober in Hawaii, he would post an undefeated 11-0-1 in a decade. More impressively, that included a 5-0 streak in UFC Middleweight (199lbs) title fights from 97-99, and he is credited with continuing his brothers’ noble work and becoming the prototypical Mixed Martial Artist that we know today. Frank defeated Olympic gold medallist and UFC tournament winner Kevin Jackson by submission in 14 seconds to win the belt, avenged his loss to Lober, beat Extreme Fighting champion Igor Zinoviev with a career ending slam, defeated MMA legend Jeremy Horn, and then capped it all off with a win over future 205lbs champion Tito Ortiz in what is the consensus greatest UFC title fight of all time. Then… he left the sport. Sporadic comeback matches eventually led to a return to the now mainstream MMA with Strikeforce, but a late career ledger of 1 win and 3 losses has tarnished somewhat his near flawless record. Worse, including Pancrase his career totals 23-10-2, an impressive yet somewhat mixed fight history that is less telling than the unified rules breakdown of 11-1-1 and 1-3 is to his overall contribution to and greatness in modern unified rules Mixed Martial Arts.
Tito Ortiz rebounded from the Frank Shamrock loss to defeat future legend Wanderlei Silva for the middleweight strap in 2000. Renamed the Light-Heavyweight title during his tenure, Tito’s five successful defences have yet to be matched, and his reign was MMA’s biggest trump card during the ‘dark ages’, when the sport was forced underground. His huge win over Ken Shamrock at UFC 40 galvanised the sport and put it back on the map, to the point where it now has boxing on the back foot after seven years riding the crest of a huge wave of popularity. However, the ‘mainstream era’ post Tito/Ken saw Ortiz lose his beloved strap to Randy Couture in 2003, then get TKO’d savagely by Chuck Liddell. Though he was a dominant champion for a time, with six successive championship victories, the American masses and new-age fans saw him gradually relegated from champion, to consensus top 3, to gatekeeper status. Randy and Chuck dished out humbling defeats that Tito never recovered from, and save for two more pointless wins over the shell of Kenneth Wayne Shamrock, and a fine defeat of Vitor Belfort, Ortiz never came close to recovering the belt that defined his career. His only shot at it came in 2006 against the formidable Chuck, himself a reigning champion, and once again he suffered a TKO defeat. His final two UFC fights after this saw him as a true gatekeeper, a mere obstacle in the respective paths of Rashad Evans and Lyoto Machida to the 205lbs crown. Evans escaped with a draw after Tito was deducted a point for fence grabbing, and went on to win the belt anyway. Lyoto Machida earned a unanimous decision over the fallen former king, though Tito almost locked in a triangle choke in the final round. Tito’s contract expired directly after this, and though he would return to the UFC after a year on the sidelines, the ‘Huntington Beach Bad Boy’ does not look like he can reclaim the title he once held dear.
And so to Anderson ‘The Spider’ Silva. Only four days after Ortiz recorded his last win to date, a useless UFC farewell to a shadow of Ken Shamrock, Silva won the UFC Middleweight Championship. It took him only three minutes to defeat the capable Rich Franklin, a feat he repeated at UFC 77 earning Knockout of the Night honours to boot. Nate Marquardt, Travis Lutter, Chris Leben, Patrick Côté, Thales Leites, James Irvin, two-weight Pride FC champion Dan Henderson and UFC Light-Heavyweight champion Forrest Griffin would join his list of victims, a list that looks to keep growing. After three dominant years, Silva is the longest reigning current champion, has the record for most consecutive UFC wins, the most middleweight title victories, and will soon be the longest reigning UFC champion ever.
As fight fans reminisce, they will talk about the Gracie days of 93-94, the Shamrock superfights of 95-96, the legendary late 96 that Mark Coleman had, the 5-0 forged by Frank Shamrock that gave a glimpse to the archetypal fighter of the future, and the 2000-2003 Tito title reign that carried the UFC through Mixed Martial Arts’ darkest days. But with his ten victories, athletic pedigree and the potentially unrivalled fighting ability that the current pride of Brazil has, how much longer can Anderson reign at middleweight for? Will he ever make a run for the Light-Heavyweight title? What more can he achieve? Will rumours of a match with former heavyweight king Mir come to fruition? And will this supremely gifted gladiator be the first fighter to actually grab an entire time period within fight-sport exclusively, so that from October 14th 2006 to whenever Silva decides to hang up his gloves will forever be known as The Spider’s Era. I lived through the Anderson years.
Fletch
Only 224 days had passed since Forrest Griffin held the UFC Light-Heavyweight championship of the world. While Silva himself is a belt holder, he was coming up a weight division to face a world champion calibre athlete who reportedly cuts from heavyweight proportions. Yet despite sound logic pointing to a close and even fight, given Anderson’s pedigree and Griffin’s lack of vicious knockout power, The Spider delivered an artistic and humbling display that included three knockdowns, a hands down Silva stance, disdainful punch evasion bordering on poetry in motion, and climaxed with the outclassed Forrest slumping to the mat unconscious after a deft counter punch, a right handed jab by the back-peddling Brazilian. Yes, he was moving backwards.
As a writer, it is hard to avoid grandiloquence when discussing Anderson Silva in the second half of his career. Even more so, given that I was not personally a fan until his display at the one hundred and first numbered Ultimate Fighting Championship event. As an unashamed Frank Shamrock super-fan, I was dismayed when the new kid on the block surpassed ‘The Legend’s’ record five UFC Middleweight title fight victories in April, with his lacklustre defence against Thales Leites at UFC 97. What was worse was the tepid pace of the fight; in winning to a chorus of boos, Anderson merely gave supporters of the imperious Fedor Emelianenko or the king of the welterweights, Georges St. Pierre, more wood to throw on the ever burning fire of The Great Lb 4 Lb Debate. But in his humiliating destruction of an elite fighter who competes at a weight twenty pounds heavier, The Spider arguably silenced all doubters among those who see lb 4 lb as a legitimate exercise in judging fighters of the time. It would be the equivalent of seeing GSP go up to middleweight and not only beat, but also clown Dan Henderson or Rich Franklin and knock out one of the former UFC and Pride champions respectively within three and a half minutes. It was the equivalent of Lyoto Machida facing former Heavyweight king and recent Interim Champion Frank Mir at a 235lbs catchweight, and doing the same. It is frightening to think what Anderson Silva can further achieve in the Octagon.
Anderson broke another record against Leites at UFC 97. He won his ninth consecutive UFC fight, an unmatched feat, which he followed up with his outstanding dissection of Forrest for a 10-0 record of perfection. It made me remember Frank Shamrock, in the wake of his own glorious victory over Tito Ortiz in a defence of the old 199lbs title. Back then in 1999, Frank claimed that monetary rewards in MMA were not enough for the risks they take, and he told UFC to call him when they had a middleweight (now Light-Heavyweight) who could beat him. Sadly, Frank never did return, but that was an occurring theme with dominant fighters, or those on the verge of dominance. I realised that Anderson alone has the potential to truly make a decade his own, so that nostalgic fans look back and remember a years-long period as ‘The Silva Era.’
In this, it is true Anderson has his rivals in that capacity. Friend and sparring partner Lyoto Machida looks truly daunting at the top of the light-heavyweight pile, he himself on a 7-0 UFC tear, and of course GSP at welterweight is carving his own legend. With Machida the only impediment in Anderson Being All That He Can Be at 205lbs, one wishes that the two fall out bitterly in order to see a dream fight to make fight fans salivate. But while the other two are, like Silva, head and shoulders above the rest of their weight class, of the three only Anderson has stepped up a weight and made an elite fighter and consensus top 4 warrior who recently held the big belt, look like an amateurish tomato can in comparison. The Spider is surely only a few more similar displays from surpassing the fighters from UFC history who have looked poised to make a whole era truly theirs, unshared and exclusive, only to fall at the final hurdle.
The first ever was Royce Gracie. In beating Art Jimmerson, a green Ken Shamrock and Gerard Gordeau to win the UFC 1 tournament, he cemented his legend. He followed it up by handily winning UFC’s 2 and 4. But after meeting former foe, rival Ken Shamrock who was now reigning King of Pancrase and MMA tournament winner in his own right, and surviving a 36 minute time limit to earn a ‘draw’, Royce left the UFC with an 11-1-1 slate. He would not return for eleven years, for a one-off match with welterweight ruler Matt Hughes. Though Royce was the undoubted king of UFC in 1993 and 1994, his abrupt departure left unanswered questions (does Shamrock have his number? Are fighters learning how to beat him?), and Gracie sacrificed the chance to maybe establish himself forevermore as the most dominant fighter the UFC will ever know. As fantastic as his record and achievements are, the latter plaudit will now probably never be the case.
The second was Ken Shamrock. After going 1-1 at UFC 1, and being introduced to Brazilian Jiu Jitsu in the harshest way, Ken fought a further 8 times in UFC in the 90s, matches that carved his legend. His form on paper in that post-UFC 1 period would be 5-1-2, but only on paper, effectively 7-1 in reality. The two ‘draws’ were due to special time limits introduced, and with no judges to award him his win, Ken’s winning record suffered. And the sole loss was ironically by split judges’ decision, in an incredibly even and equally boring rematch with Dan Severn, whom Ken had defeated to become champion.
Out of the men who had best chance to make an era their own, Ken perhaps had the best chance, which he arguably squandered. The single loss from eight high profile fights, including five title fights, should have been followed up on. He won two fights at the crazy, infamous UFC 3, but after Gracie forfeited his own semi-final, Ken refused to fight in the final and risk worsening his knee injury with no loss to avenge. He won a tournament and became a reigning champion in Japanese org Pancrase, which came in useful as a bargaining chip for a special UFC ‘Superfight’ with Royce. After that inconclusive outcome (which Ken saw as a moral victory, a win on all but paper) Ken remained in the Superfight slot, which became a means of having a reigning UFC openweight champion that the one-night tournament winners could face. Ken faced UFC 5 champion Dan Severn, whom he guillotine choked to submission in two minutes. He defended the belt in his second Superfight ‘draw’ against UFC 6 tournament winner and stable-mate Oleg Taktarov, and then beat Kimo Leopoldo more conclusively with a kneebar at UFC 8. Then in his fifth Superfight, things went wrong for Shamrock. After a thirty minute circling staredown, Severn was given the newly instated judges’ nod in his hometown. Ken fought once more in early UFC, giving his most explosive performance in a Ground and Pound massacre of Brian Johnston, but unfortunately broke his hand and had to withdraw from the tournament. With his contract in both UFC and Pancrase at an end, and the need to find a more lucrative career to fund his Lion’s Den fight team; given that MMA was increasingly being forced under the radar by politicians, Ken left the sport at his physical and fighting peak. Despite his later return, Shamrock could not compete with the younger champions of the day, and to date his record since 2000 is 4 wins and 8 losses.
Mark Coleman trained with Ken and the Lion’s Den, and later joined him in the UFC Hall of Fame. He burst onto the scene winning the UFC 10 and 11 tournaments using wrestling and formidable Ground and Pound, and as weight classes were introduced to the UFC, kept Shamrock’s title lineage going with a Superfight victory over Dan Severn that passed the torch to the official first UFC Heavyweight champion. In only six consecutive fights, The Hammer had claimed three separate UFC championship honours.
Yet that was as good as it got, at least in the UFC for Coleman. Losing to Maurice Smith (another Lion’s Den fighter) in his first defence, he went on to another three successive losses, including becoming a famous highlight reel KO to Pete Williams (yet another Lion’s Den fighter). Though Coleman went to Pride FC in Japan to win their openweight Grand Prix in 2000, his early UFC dominance was truly shattered as his suspect cardio was brought to harsh light.
Frank Shamrock left Pancrase for unified rules MMA, and after a debut loss to John Lober in Hawaii, he would post an undefeated 11-0-1 in a decade. More impressively, that included a 5-0 streak in UFC Middleweight (199lbs) title fights from 97-99, and he is credited with continuing his brothers’ noble work and becoming the prototypical Mixed Martial Artist that we know today. Frank defeated Olympic gold medallist and UFC tournament winner Kevin Jackson by submission in 14 seconds to win the belt, avenged his loss to Lober, beat Extreme Fighting champion Igor Zinoviev with a career ending slam, defeated MMA legend Jeremy Horn, and then capped it all off with a win over future 205lbs champion Tito Ortiz in what is the consensus greatest UFC title fight of all time. Then… he left the sport. Sporadic comeback matches eventually led to a return to the now mainstream MMA with Strikeforce, but a late career ledger of 1 win and 3 losses has tarnished somewhat his near flawless record. Worse, including Pancrase his career totals 23-10-2, an impressive yet somewhat mixed fight history that is less telling than the unified rules breakdown of 11-1-1 and 1-3 is to his overall contribution to and greatness in modern unified rules Mixed Martial Arts.
Tito Ortiz rebounded from the Frank Shamrock loss to defeat future legend Wanderlei Silva for the middleweight strap in 2000. Renamed the Light-Heavyweight title during his tenure, Tito’s five successful defences have yet to be matched, and his reign was MMA’s biggest trump card during the ‘dark ages’, when the sport was forced underground. His huge win over Ken Shamrock at UFC 40 galvanised the sport and put it back on the map, to the point where it now has boxing on the back foot after seven years riding the crest of a huge wave of popularity. However, the ‘mainstream era’ post Tito/Ken saw Ortiz lose his beloved strap to Randy Couture in 2003, then get TKO’d savagely by Chuck Liddell. Though he was a dominant champion for a time, with six successive championship victories, the American masses and new-age fans saw him gradually relegated from champion, to consensus top 3, to gatekeeper status. Randy and Chuck dished out humbling defeats that Tito never recovered from, and save for two more pointless wins over the shell of Kenneth Wayne Shamrock, and a fine defeat of Vitor Belfort, Ortiz never came close to recovering the belt that defined his career. His only shot at it came in 2006 against the formidable Chuck, himself a reigning champion, and once again he suffered a TKO defeat. His final two UFC fights after this saw him as a true gatekeeper, a mere obstacle in the respective paths of Rashad Evans and Lyoto Machida to the 205lbs crown. Evans escaped with a draw after Tito was deducted a point for fence grabbing, and went on to win the belt anyway. Lyoto Machida earned a unanimous decision over the fallen former king, though Tito almost locked in a triangle choke in the final round. Tito’s contract expired directly after this, and though he would return to the UFC after a year on the sidelines, the ‘Huntington Beach Bad Boy’ does not look like he can reclaim the title he once held dear.
And so to Anderson ‘The Spider’ Silva. Only four days after Ortiz recorded his last win to date, a useless UFC farewell to a shadow of Ken Shamrock, Silva won the UFC Middleweight Championship. It took him only three minutes to defeat the capable Rich Franklin, a feat he repeated at UFC 77 earning Knockout of the Night honours to boot. Nate Marquardt, Travis Lutter, Chris Leben, Patrick Côté, Thales Leites, James Irvin, two-weight Pride FC champion Dan Henderson and UFC Light-Heavyweight champion Forrest Griffin would join his list of victims, a list that looks to keep growing. After three dominant years, Silva is the longest reigning current champion, has the record for most consecutive UFC wins, the most middleweight title victories, and will soon be the longest reigning UFC champion ever.
As fight fans reminisce, they will talk about the Gracie days of 93-94, the Shamrock superfights of 95-96, the legendary late 96 that Mark Coleman had, the 5-0 forged by Frank Shamrock that gave a glimpse to the archetypal fighter of the future, and the 2000-2003 Tito title reign that carried the UFC through Mixed Martial Arts’ darkest days. But with his ten victories, athletic pedigree and the potentially unrivalled fighting ability that the current pride of Brazil has, how much longer can Anderson reign at middleweight for? Will he ever make a run for the Light-Heavyweight title? What more can he achieve? Will rumours of a match with former heavyweight king Mir come to fruition? And will this supremely gifted gladiator be the first fighter to actually grab an entire time period within fight-sport exclusively, so that from October 14th 2006 to whenever Silva decides to hang up his gloves will forever be known as The Spider’s Era. I lived through the Anderson years.
Fletch
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