Sham-Rocked: The King of Controversy - Part 2 of 2

    In part one of this article, Frank Shamrock had just destroyed the first of modern MMA’s threats to his legacy in Phil Baroni, and a move to a larger organization to face higher-ranked opponents seemed all but impossible due to political reasons.

    So the next challenge came from within the ranks of Strikeforce: rising superstar Cung Le. Coming in undefeated in MMA (5-0), as well as with a staggering amount of success in his former discipline of San Shou (roughly equated to kickboxing with throws and takedowns, although that may be an oversimplification), Le and Shamrock were also former training partners, which added a built-in dimension of pre-fight hype.

    A sidebar about Cung Le, as he himself can be something of a controversy magnet. His first two MMA wins were over fighters with, let us say, less than stellar records.

    His third fight against Ultimate Fighter star Jason “Livewire” Von Flue looked to be his first real test (despite being a natural welterweight), but Von Flue was stopped by a cut in less than a minute.

    Next came Team Punishment fighter Tony “The Freak” Fryklund, who was something of a journeyman, but was also coming off two losses in a row, and had a history of choosing to stand with fighters who were vastly superior to him in terms of striking (most notably the UFC’s Middleweight Champion Anderson Silva, who knocked Fryklund halfway into a seizure with an elbow strike in their bout). In fact, Fryklund stood yet again, and paid the price by TKO in the third round. Or did he? It was at this point that the questions began to swirl around Cung Le:

    “Those flashy kicks look great but they don’t do much damage; it took him three rounds to finish Fryklund.”

    “It looked to me like he didn’t even try to take him down.”

    “That fight looked pretty fishy to me.”

    Despite Le’s San Shou proficiency and a state championship in amateur wrestling, it was becoming difficult for people to decide if he couldn’t be taken down, or if people simply weren’t trying. By my own estimation, Fryklund tried for perhaps three takedowns in the fight, none of which came even close to succeeding. Shamrock’s fight had a similar ratio, but more on that later.

    Cung Le’s last stop on the road to the title came in the form of Sammy “The Squeeze” Morgan, who although also a natural welterweight, had his own bag of questions. In short, Morgan had been brutally knocked out twice in back to back fights, both of which were very visible to the public, but he had also knocked out an extremely dangerous striker in Bas Rutten protégé Duane “Bang” Ludwig, so up to the plate he went.

    By all accounts Morgan was taken down more or less at will, but Le seemed unsure as to what he should do with him afterwards. In any event, Morgan was TKO’d in the third round by a body kick. Fresh off this win, it was time for the two San Jose prodigies to square off.

    Cung Le, not exactly known as a trash talker, but still not one to stand for nonsense, made it known that he used to regularly get the better of Shamrock in both the standup and takedown portions of their sparring sessions back in the day. Shamrock, not to be outdone, made a music video of "highlights" of him landing shots on Cung Le in sparring, and uploaded it on the internet.

    Shortly after, it was made clear that the video was edited to a fairly ridiculous extent to appear favorable to Shamrock, and once again, Frank laughed it off, acting as though he never truly intended to deceive anyone. However, he told anyone who would listen that his skills were much improved now, and that he absolutely planned to stand with the kickboxing standout.

    During this time Frank also took time out of his busy schedule to work on scheduling a fight with his own adopted brother, MMA pioneer and current hard-luck story Ken Shamrock. Frank got the fireworks kicked off early by intimating that Ken had used steroids his whole career, which Ken immediately leapt to defend. At press time it sounded like Frank had gotten underneath the skin of Ken sufficiently to grab another headline fight, either next in line, or after his business with Cung Le was finished.

    Back on topic, the fight with Le was an absolute slugfest, lasting three full rounds. Cung Le got the better of the striking by far, catching Shamrock in his chin (which proved to be rock solid on Saturday, if anyone had any doubts) with unorthodox techniques one after another, and working his body and legs with kicks anytime Shamrock tried to close the distance.

    Frank had his moments in the fight as well, as his new boxing skills found their mark often enough to have Le on rubbery legs toward the end of the third round. Unfortunately, it was revealed that Shamrock’s forearm had snapped in two from stopping one kick to many, and he was unable to come out for the fourth round. True to form, as soon as the fight had ended (well, after the fan-gloating had subsided somewhat) the controversy welled back up like an oil rig:

    “Shamrock had the takedown and he let it go!”

    “He did that same stupid ‘nighty-night’ thing he did against Baroni, too bad he couldn’t back it up this time.”

    “He could have won easily if he had just taken him down.” (For the record, Shamrock did attempt to get Le to the ground at least twice, and halfhearted as they may have been, neither attempt succeeded.)

    So the question remains, what happened?

    Did Shamrock have a bad gameplan, or simply too much confidence in his standup skills?

     Did his oft-reported bad knee prevent him from going for takedowns? Possibly, but some would argue that Frank’s takedowns have always been the weak link in his game.

     Could he have won if not for the injury? In my opinion Cung Le looked tired at the end of the third round, and Frank is known for his conditioning.

     Was he simply more interested in putting on a show than winning? Very possible. In fact, Frank himself would probably say that he’s more of a businessman than a fighter at this point, and putting on a show is simply good business.

    The dreaded F-word…Was the fight fixed? Even though the rumors of a fixed pair of fights leading to a legitimate rubber match between the two surfaced long before the fight actually happened, Shamrock has a legitimately broken arm and nearly knocked out Le seconds before it happened, so I find this highly unlikely.

    Whatever did happen, people are talking, and undoubtedly Frank Shamrock has a huge smile on his face, broken arm or not. What’s next for The Legend? A fight with his brother, a shot at “his” title, a rematch with Gracie, or something different entirely? Who knows? But I bet you’ll watch it, and so will I.