Very Good or Great? Volume 6: Frank Shamrock

I know you hate boxing analogies but my rationale for picking Frank as a "great" is kind of like this. No one thinks Sullivan would have a hope in hell of beating Joe Louis but he's an ATG because he's the bridge between the bareknuckle days and modern boxing. Granted, he didn't have anywhere near the amount of losses to bums like Frank does but they're similar in that they didn't beat or even fight many guys who are also considered ATGs and neither has a skillset that could hold up to the best of modern boxing or MMA. They were, however, pioneers, damn good fighters, and the best of their respective eras.

I selected great on this one merely for Shamrock's contributions towards modernizing the game and the fact that he did hold major hardware but I could just as easily agree with "very good" because of the plethora of losses to subpar competition that he suffered early on, as well as the dearth of wins over top competition.

 

Guys who fought in Pancrase are always difficult to compare with modern MMA. It really was a leap into the unknown for foreign guys in a way that's almost unimaginable today. You get the benefit of watching these guys fight just by typing a name into Youtube, that's a luxury that wasnt afforded to the early MMA fighters. Case in point is how easily Ken Shamrock shut down Royce Gracie after their 1st encounter by re-evaluating the footage

I like the Sullivan comparison and think it's a fair point. But I think the gulf in class between Sullivan and Louis is much wider than Frank and today's lot

Interesting question, would Max have beaten Joe in the 1st fight if he hadnt had the benefit of reviewing Joe's footage and noticing that Louis dropped his hand after jabbing and working on countering in the gym? In Sullivan's day you didnt have that benefit, more often than not you only realised what the guy in the opposite corner brought to the table when the bell rang

The multimedia age has benefited all sports in this way. Before, you would only benefit from learning from others is you trained or fought them.

Over all beneath this rambling post I guess my point is that back in the day you had to learn the hard way from your losses rather than have the benefit of watching a tape and learning from someone else's

 

Ken didn't just watch the fight video to find out what happened. Mr. " I don't train Jiu Jitsu" ran off and did just that. If I'm not mistaken, it was with the Machado Brothers. Ken became a bjj student in order to learn how to deal with Royce.

Otherwise, good point about the videos. That's what I do when I analyze matches in the prediction league. When I don't know who someone is, I search for video of them. It's difficult to do with the UFC fights now, because those videos are becoming harder to come by.

 

Almost everybody went and trained BJJ after UFC 1 fella. Which is kind of my point :thumbsup If Ken had know what Royce was about, he conceivably could have beaten him the 1st time out

UFC 1-5 is basically a Gracie JJ info-mercial. It took till UFC 7 to see something as revolutionary as a leg kick being thrown effectively by Ruas. Now they are par for the course

 

The thing you have to consider with earlier guys was that the knowledge of styles wasn't out there like it is now, so people have losses to guys who simply pulled something out that hadn't been covered in training.