Tuesday, July 5, 2005 Chatter • How long until we’re MMA’s next Mecca?
Publisher’s note: This Chatter column originally appeared in the Tuesday, July 12, 2005 edition of the Lassen County Times.
Ken Shamrock isn’t wasting any time or energy moving his famous Lion’s Den operation to Susanville.
No, sir. In fact, the World’s Most Dangerous Man invited me to his new homestead in Susanville last week to check out some of the talent under consideration for his new “stable” of fighters who will live, train and work out right here in our hometown.
As an Ultimate Fighting Championship legend, Shamrock casts a pretty large shadow across the mixed martial arts world, so a dozen or so wannabe fighters from up and down the state rolled into town last week to try and impress Shamrock and show him they had the right stuff to be a member of his fabled Lion’s Den. A television station from Reno was on hand, and several other video cameras rolled to record the action as Shamrock and several Lion’s Den “coaches” set up a little mini boot camp on the hill and lowland behind Shamrock’s home to test the heart and will of the would-be fighters.
The UFC legend didn’t pull his punches as he talked to the participants at the base of a steep hillside near Gold Run Creek. He told them the day’s activities were going to be dangerous. He told them they might get hurt. He told them they all would probably fail before the afternoon session ended. And he told them that was OK because the day was designed just that way.
Shamrock has his own unique methods — which he refers to as “dinosaur training.” Rather than working with weights in a gym, Shamrock prefers the shifting weight of heavy sandbags and the sloshing of 10-gallon water jugs. I’ll tell you, the test was tough enough to break just about any grown man — in shape or not.
Right from the start, Shamrock and the coaches played good cop/bad cop with the recruits. “You wanna quit?” one of the coaches yelled as a fighter started walking during a 30-minute warm-up jog. “You wanna quit? Then quit. I want you to quit. I want you to go home and tell your mother and your girlfriend and your kids you couldn’t make it because you’re a quitter. You’ll always be a quitter.”
Pretty rough stuff.
But the UFC legend quietly had the final say about who continued and who didn’t, and he frequently gave the recruits another chance, over the noisy objections of his hand-picked coaches. One recruit quickly came up lame. Another suffered an electrolyte imbalance. Despite the pestering hostility, at other times the coaches urged the participants to help pace each other and work together as teammates.
Jeez, the recruits lifted and lugged the sand bags and the water jugs. They took turns carrying each other up and down a long hill. They walked up and down the hill on all fours, tearing layers of skin off the hands of those silly enough or inexperienced enough to put their weight forward while coming down the slippery, rocky slope.
Exhausted, the wannabe fighters finally got a chance to do what they do best — take each other on. It was a brutal day, but in the end, Shamrock liked four of the fighters enough to say they made the cut and earned an opportunity to train with one of the greats in the Lion’s Den.
Make no mistake about it, Shamrock has some pretty big plans for his new fighters. He wants champions, and you can be sure the faint of heart, the weak, the lazy or the undedicated will head straight out of town.
To be honest, I don’t know how long it will take Shamrock and company to turn one of these young recruits into a mixed martial arts champion. But I don’t have any doubt it will happen. Champions in any sport aren’t made in a single day. Still, one thing’s pretty obvious from the way Shamrock works — it’s not if, it’s when.
I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait. Go Lion’s Den.
