Frank Shamrock

Early life Born into a Mexican-Native family on December 8, 1972, Frank Juarez was placed in various foster homes, group homes, and crisis centers from the age of twelve onwards. He had many run-ins with law enforcement until eventually he went to live with Bob Shamrock, who with his wife Dede, had taken in thousands of troubled boys (including Frank's older adoptive brother Ken). Juarez went to live with Shamrock at his home in Susanville, California, and was officially adopted by Bob Shamrock at the age of 21, and legally changed his name from Juarez to Shamrock thereafter.

In the early 1990s, Shamrock served three-and-a-half years in the Folsom State Prison after being convicted of burglary.

Mixed martial arts career

Pancrase In 1994, Ken began to train Frank in what they referred to as "submission fighting", which essentially was the Pancrase style of catch wrestling modified for No Holds Barred fighting. Frank accompanied his brother to bouts in the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) and grew to love the sport. He became a member of Ken's training school, the Lion's Den, and made his mixed martial arts debut in the Pancrase organization in Japan.

Shamrock debuted as a fighter in Pancrase on December 16, 1994, in one of the biggest events in mixed martial arts history to date, the King of Pancrase tournament. He was an important underdog against top Pancrase fighter Bas Rutten but went on to defeat Rutten in a close decision victory. Shamrock faced off against expert grappler and eventual tournament finalist Manabu Yamada later that night, but was defeated via submission at 8:38 of round 1.

In 1995, Shamrock would get a win over Katsuomi Inagaki, but he faced next his own trainer, MMA legend and Pancrase co-founder Masakatsu Funaki, who defeated him. He would bounce back with a victory over the other founder of the promotion, Minoru Suzuki, getting a KO after a flurry of strikes.

Shortly after, Shamrock faced Bas Rutten for a second time. He failed to execute his gameplan of taking down Rutten, and the two fell between the ring ropes to the floor in a specially hard-fought attempt. Shamrock then devised a new strategy and started mocking and taunting Rutten during a leglock exchange, in order to get the Dutch fighter angry enough to commit an infraction. The plan was successful, and Frank won a point when Rutten gained a yellow card for hitting him with a closed fist, but Shamrock still lost the match by decision.

Ultimate Fighting Championship After the win over Inoue, Shamrock joined the UFC and fought Kevin Jackson for the newly created UFC Middleweight Championship (later renamed the UFC Light Heavyweight Championship). Jackson had won the middleweight tournament at UFC 14 and was undefeated in MMA at the time, and was also the Olympic gold medalist in freestyle wrestling for the 1992 Summer Olympics. Despite being a heavy underdog, Shamrock armbarred Jackson in just 16 seconds to win the championship.

Shamrock then made his first title defense against then undefeated Extreme Fighting champion Russian Igor Zinoviev at UFC 16. Zinoviev was a feared Russian kickboxer and sambo specialist who held wins over Mario Sperry and Enson Inoue. Shamrock shot a double leg takedown and slammed Zinoviev down so hard that it knocked him unconscious. Zinoviev suffered a broken collarbone and a fractured C-5 vertebra from the slam and had to be carried out on a stretcher. Zinoviev's fight with Shamrock forced him to retire permanently from mixed martial arts ending the Russian's career. Shamrock then defended his belt against Jeremy Horn at UFC 17, submitting him with a kneebar. In October 1998, Shamrock avenged his earlier loss to John Lober by beating him decisively in 7 minutes at UFC Brazil.

In September 1999, Shamrock defended the UFC Middleweight Championship against future UFC Light Heavyweight Champion Tito Ortiz at UFC 22. Ortiz had exploded as a star after his confrontation with Shamrock's brother Ken and his Lion's Den camp at UFC 19. The bout was hyped as a grudge, as Shamrock was a former Lion's Den member who, according to the marketing, was out for revenge against Ortiz. However, this was not necessarily the case because Shamrock had left the Lion's Den on bad terms a year and a half earlier. Despite dominating his opponents in his previous title defenses, Shamrock was considered to be an underdog in this fight; Ortiz had come off convincing wins over Shamrock's former teammates Jerry Bohlander and Guy Mezger and popular opinion was that Ortiz was too big and strong for him to deal with (Ortiz cut weight to fight and by the time he stepped into the cage he would have on Shamrock).

However, in what is widely considered to be one of the greatest fights in UFC history, Shamrock won after brutal elbows, punches, and hammer blows forced Ortiz to tap out at the end of round 4. Shamrock has stated that Ortiz was his toughest opponent physically due to his weight advantage and style of fighting.

I've talked to Frank Shamrock many times. Frank Shamrock will lead you to believe that we've never talked and we completely have hated each other forever and everything else. He's a weird guy. He's a very, very weird guy. I can't explain it. Frank is a weird guy.

Return After a brief retirement, Shamrock returned to mixed martial arts as a career. He signed a deal to fight Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu standout Elvis Sinosic at K-1, the premiere kickboxing event in the world. Shamrock beat Sinosic via unanimous decision after five three-minute rounds. Later, when Sinosic faced Tito Ortiz for the UFC light-heavyweight title (formerly the middleweight title) at UFC 32, Shamrock served as guest commentator. On August 11, 2001, he took on his former student, Shannon Ritch in a kickboxing match for K-1. Just 56 seconds into the first round, Shamrock broke Ritch's arm with a roundhouse kick and thereby won the match.

Shamrock helped to train UFC veteran B.J. Penn for his early bouts with the UFC at the American Kickboxing Academy and produced his own events Bushido and ShootBox. His first MMA match since 2000 was winning the WEC light-heavyweight championship in under two minutes from Bryan Pardoe by submission in March 2003.

On March 10, 2006, at Strikeforce: Shamrock vs. Gracie, the first MMA event sanctioned by the state of California, he knocked out Cesar Gracie in 21 seconds. Gracie had never fought an MMA match and was 40 years old, so the fight was considered a serious mismatch. However, Gracie is an elite Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu instructor with years of training under his belt as well being the mentor of students such as the Diaz brothers, Nate and Nick.

On September 14, 2006, it was announced that Shamrock had signed a multimillion-dollar contract with startup MMA organization "The World Fighter" and was scheduled to fight in January 2007. However, Shamrock told Sherdog that the World Fighter contract no longer applied because it was entirely contingent on the organization getting a television contract with Showtime; the cable network instead agreed to air fights for the EliteXC promotion.

On February 10, 2007, Shamrock lost his fight by disqualification to Renzo Gracie during the EliteXC event which was televised on Showtime. During the fight, Gracie repeatedly took Frank to the ground, but Shamrock kept active by stopping his positional advance and hitting knee strikes from the bottom. However, Shamrock delivered two of those knees to Gracie's head while both men were on the ground, and after a five-minute injury time out, Gracie was unable to continue. Referee Herb Dean disqualified Shamrock due to a foul (illegal strikes to the back of the head, and knees to the head of a grounded opponent). Dean had already warned Shamrock once earlier in the fight about striking to the back of the head—an illegal move under the Unified Rules of Mixed Martial Arts.

In December 2005, Shamrock opened his first school, Shamrock Martial Arts Academy in San Jose, California. Shamrock trains his students in kickboxing and submission wrestling. He managed Team Shamrock, his own fight team. In June 2006, Shamrock was chosen as a coach for the San Jose Razorclaws of the International Fight League. Debuting against Carlos Newton's Toronto Dragons on September 23, 2006, at the Mark in Moline, Illinois, The Dragons won 3–2. The Razorclaws subsequently lost 2–3 against the Ken Shamrock coached Nevada Lions on January 19, 2007.

Strikeforce Shamrock and Phil Baroni had engaged in a war of words with YouTube videos following Shamrock's fight with Renzo Gracie. The two faced off at Strikeforce: Shamrock vs. Baroni, a co-promotion between EliteXC and Strikeforce on June 22, 2007, on pay-per-view.

Shamrock went on to out-strike Baroni in the first part of this fight in the stand-up. Shamrock was docked a point for using strikes to the back of the head while he had Baroni's back. In the second round, Shamrock took some strikes from Baroni, but he was able to regain control and drop Baroni, transition to his back and end the fight with a rear naked choke. Baroni refused to tap out and was choked unconscious. As soon as he regained his senses, he walked over to Shamrock, congratulated him and left the cage. By winning the match, Shamrock became the Strikeforce Middleweight Champion, thereby making him the first person to win a title in all three major North American fight promotions: the UFC, WEC and Strikeforce.

On January 11, 2008, it was announced that Shamrock would face Cung Le in a match on March 29, 2008, for the Strikeforce Middleweight Championship during the joint Strike force-Elite XC event at the HP Pavilion in San Jose, California. Le arguably controlled the fight, at times out-striking the more MMA-experienced Shamrock. At one point in the later stages of round 3 Shamrock appeared to have Le hurt but was unable to finish him with a barrage of punches against the cage. Le recovered and responded in the closing seconds of the round with more kicks and a spinning back fist. Shamrock was unable to answer the bell to begin round 4 due to a broken arm caused by one of Le's kicks and the fight was ruled a TKO as a result of corner stoppage. Shamrock indicated post-fight that these kicks had broken his right arm.

Frank publicly stated that he would like to face Ken Shamrock in the first quarter of 2009, until stating in an interview "there's no point in fighting Ken, he's finished, why beat on an old man?" causing the likelihood of this fight to now be very slim. Afterwards, he said that he would like to fight Tito Ortiz and then Cung Le and then "do some boxing stuff."

On April 11, 2009, Shamrock was defeated by Nick Diaz by technical knock out.

Retirement Shamrock announced his retirement from fighting on June 26, 2010, at Strikeforce: Fedor vs. Werdum.

Bellator MMA On February 5, 2013, Shamrock signed with Bellator to coach on the promotions reality series titled Fight Master: Bellator MMA.

Submission grappling

RIZIN On October 15, 2017, Shamrock fought Pride veteran Kazushi Sakuraba in a grappling exhibition match at the 2017 Rizin World Grand Prix Opening Round in Fukuoka, Japan. The match ended with a draw decision.

Fighting style Shamrock became known as a training pioneer, constantly seeking new influences to round up his game. He also studied Jeet Kune Do before his UFC debut.

Personal life Shamrock was married to Amy Warren until their separation and subsequent divorce in 2019. Together they have one child, a daughter named Nicolette who was born on April 24, 2008. Shamrock also has a son named Frankie from a previous marriage. Shamrock runs a franchise of schools, a merchandising company, Frank Shamrock, Inc. (a personal asset management company), MMA Entertainment, and Mixed Martial Arts For Law Enforcement (a law enforcement training business).

In 1998, Shamrock had a falling out with his brother Ken and his father Bob; they would not communicate again until Bob became terminally ill years later. In separate interviews aired January 18, 2007 by Sherdog.com's Beatdown radio show, both Frank and Ken said they remain estranged - Frank claimed Ken has spurned all attempts at reconciliation; Ken accused Frank of treating their father poorly. As seen on Frank's Spike TV documentary, Bound by Blood, he and Ken have reconciled. On January 14, 2010, Bob Shamrock died due to health complications from diabetes.

In an interview with Sam Caplan of sportsline.com, Shamrock revealed he felt concerned with Ken's training methods, and when he confronted Ken, he was told "You don't have what it takes, you're not going to be a world champion and I want you to run my gyms for the rest of your life." This spurred him on to leave which led to the estrangement of both Ken and Bob (who took Ken's side in the disagreement). He also stated that he would be happy to fight against Ken, should the opportunity arise.

Shamrock is a commentator and fighter on the EA Sports MMA video game which was released in 2010. Shamrock is also featured in the award-winning documentary on the sport of mixed martial arts titled Fight Life, released in 2013. The film is directed by James Z. Feng and produced by RiLL Films.

Shamrock landed a guest role as Hammer on Walker, Texas Ranger and the main role in a Burger King commercial. He was featured as Damien in the 2005 movie No Rules and was uncredited in an episode of Oz. On November 18, 2010, Shamrock appeared as a guest on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.

In October 2012, Shamrock released his autobiography Uncaged: My Life as a Champion MMA Fighter. Shamrock also wrote the Wiley book Mixed Martial Arts for Dummies.

Shamrock is an advocate for the use of cannabis, which he says helped eliminate his reliance on pharmaceutical drugs. In January 2017 Shamrock launched The Bakeout, an online talk show seeking to "uplift, unite, educate, challenge, and encourage viewers in a manner consistent with the teachings of the healing powers of cannabis".

On January 14, 2018, sports announcer Mauro Ranallo stated that Shamrock saved his life when Shamrock performed the Heimlich maneuver on Ranallo as he was choking.

In March 2019 Shamrock was reportedly investigated by Dallas police for allegedly leaving one of his mother's dogs, at Love Field airport in Dallas, Texas, for a little under a week.

Championships and accomplishments Pancrase Hybrid Wrestling Interim King of Pancrase (One time) Ultimate Fighting Championship UFC Light Heavyweight Championship (One time; first) Four successful title defenses UFC Encyclopedia Awards Fight of the Night (Two times) Knockout of the Night (One time) Submission of the Night (One time) Headlined the first UFC event in Brazil Fastest submission in the history of the UFC Light Heavyweight division (0:16) Undefeated in the UFC (5–0) Strikeforce First MMA fighter to win championships in UFC, WEC & Strikeforce Strikeforce Middleweight Championship (One time, first) Fastest knockout in Strikeforce history (0:20) World Extreme Cagefighting WEC Light Heavyweight Championship (One time, first) Sherdog Mixed Martial Arts Hall of Fame International Sports Hall of Fame Class of 2022 Black Belt Magazine 1998 Full-Contact Fighter of the Year Wrestling Observer Newsletter 1998 Most Outstanding Fighter 1999 Most Outstanding Fighter 1999 Fight of the Year vs. Tito Ortiz on September 24, 1999 1990s Fighter of the Decade Inside MMA 2008 Fight of the Year Bazzie Award vs. Cung Le on March 29 Fight Matrix 1998 Fighter of the Year Martial Arts History Museum Hall of Fame Class of 2015

Mixed martial arts record Loss

Nick Diaz TKO (punches) Strikeforce: Shamrock vs. Diaz

San Jose, California, United States Loss

Cung Le TKO (broken arm) Strikeforce: Shamrock vs. Le

San Jose, California, United States Win

Phil Baroni Technical Submission (rear-naked choke) Strikeforce Shamrock vs. Baroni

San Jose, California, United States Loss

Renzo Gracie DQ (knees to downed opponent) EliteXC Destiny

Southaven, Mississippi, United States Win

Cesar Gracie KO (punches) Strikeforce: Shamrock vs. Gracie

San Jose, California, United States Win

Bryan Pardoe Submission (armbar) WEC 6: Return of a Legend

Lemoore, California, United States Win

Elvis Sinosic Decision (split) K-1 World Grand Prix 2000

Tokyo, Japan Win

Tito Ortiz TKO (submission to punches) UFC 22

Lake Charles, Louisiana, United States Draw

Kiyoshi Tamura Draw Rings: Rise 2nd

Japan Win

John Lober TKO (submission to punches) UFC Brazil

São Paulo, Brazil Win

Jeremy Horn Submission (kneebar) UFC 17

Mobile, Alabama, United States Win

Igor Zinoviev KO (slam) UFC 16

New Orleans, Louisiana, United States Win

Kevin Jackson Submission (armbar) UFC Japan

Yokohama, Japan Win

Enson Inoue DQ (Egan Inoue ran into the ring) Vale Tudo Japan 1997

Tokyo, Japan Win

Wes Gassaway DQ (rope escapes) World Pankration Championships 1

Texas, United States Win

Tsuyoshi Kohsaka Decision (unanimous) Rings: Extension Fighting 7

Japan Loss

John Lober Technical Decision (split) SuperBrawl 3

Honolulu, Hawaii, United States Loss

Kiuma Kunioku Decision (unanimous) Pancrase: Truth 10

Tokyo, Japan Loss

Yuki Kondo KO (head kick) Pancrase: 1996 Anniversary Show

Chiba, Japan Win

Manabu Yamada Submission (rear-naked choke) Pancrase: 1996 Neo-Blood Tournament, Round 1

Tokyo, Japan Loss

Bas Rutten TKO (cut) Pancrase: Truth 5

Tokyo, Japan Win

Osami Shibuya Decision (unanimous) Pancrase: Truth 4

Tokyo, Japan Win

Ryushi Yanagisawa Decision (unanimous) Pancrase: Truth 2

Kobe, Japan Win

Minoru Suzuki Submission (kneebar) Pancrase: Truth 1

Yokohama, Japan Win

Vernon White Submission (achilles lock) Pancrase: Eyes of Beast 7

Sapporo, Japan Win

Masakatsu Funaki Submission (toe hold) Pancrase: Eyes of Beast 6

Yokohama, Japan Win

Takafumi Ito Submission (rear-naked choke) Pancrase: 1995 Anniversary Show

Tokyo, Japan Loss

Bas Rutten Decision (split) Pancrase: 1995 Neo-Blood Tournament Second Round

Tokyo, Japan Win

Takaku Fuke Submission (rear-naked choke) Pancrase: Eyes of Beast 5

Sapporo, Hokkaido, Japan Draw

Allan Goes Draw Pancrase: Eyes of Beast 4

Chiba, Chiba, Japan Win

Minoru Suzuki Submission (rear-naked Choke) Pancrase: Eyes of Beast 3

Nagoya, Japan Loss

Masakatsu Funaki Submission (toe hold) Pancrase: Eyes of Beast 2

Yokohama, Kanagawa, Japan Win

Katsuomi Inagaki Submission (rear naked choke) Pancrase: Eyes of Beast 1

Nagoya, Aichi, Japan Loss

Manabu Yamada Submission (achilles lock)

Win

Bas Rutten Decision (majority)

Kickboxing record

Submission grappling record Result Opponent Method Event Date Round Time