Inside the Lion's Den by Ken Shamrock & Richard Hanner

Author:Ken Shamrock & Richard Hanner [Shamrock, Ken]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781462907441
Publisher: Tuttle Publishing
Published: 2012-10-30T00:00:00+00:00

Before his Super-fight in Puerto Rico, Shamrock found time to relax on the beach at Isla Verde with his wife, Tina. (Lions Den photo)

It is Wednesday night, forty-eight hours before the fight is to begin, assuming the legal obstacles are cleared aside. Earlier in the day, a U.S. District Court judge, Daniel Dominguez, agreed to take the matter under consideration. Shamrock must continue as if the fight will happen. He has found a dojo where he may spar away from the probing eyes of the reporters and curious competitors at The Sands. The Shamrock entourage leaves the resort for the secret location. On the way, Shamrock is pensive but confident. He sits in the front passenger seat as his father weaves the rental car through the busy San Juan traffic. "This won't be a complicated fight. Kimo is going to come after me like a runaway train. I'll use my submissions. I'll probably take him with a leg submission. Kimo is big and tough, but his technique is not advanced," Shamrock says. In the months since entering his first UFC, Shamrock feels he has honed his own submissions technique to a near-surgical efficiency. "It's not so much about rage, though I need to be aggressive. It is about technique. In the end, it's technique that will decide most fights."

The rental pulls in front of the storefront martial arts studio of Michael Cruz in Levittown, a suburb of San Juan. It is nearly 10:00 P.M., about the time Shamrock will fight Friday night. During the week before a competition, Shamrock always tries to spar at the same time the actual fight is to be held so his body is accustomed to revving up and delivering at the right time. No classes have been held at the dojo tonight, but more than 100 Puerto Ricans, friends and students of Cruz, have gathered. They are hoping for a glimpse of Shamrock. Wearing a black Pancrase bandanna that gives him the look of a buffed-out buccaneer, Shamrock enters the small dojo and begins stretching on the red mat. Against the window, peering through iron bars, are dozens of eyes. Shamrock finishes his stretches, then strips to a pair of black shorts and wrestling shoes. He punches at padded focus gloves held by Masa Funaki, his friend and advisor. Each strike resounds through the small space like a sonic boom. Thwwwwak. Thwwwwak. Thwwwwwwwwak. Outside, the crowd murmurs. Shamrock goes through his routine, striking with the gloves, practicing takedowns, then moving through the guard and mount positions.

For most of his fights, Shamrock brings in a surrogate for his eventual nemesis. As a stand-in for Kimo, he has recruited Dan Freeman, a former AAU Mr. California bodybuilder and a karate black belt from Modesto, California. When he is not training, Freeman is a radiation therapist at a hospital in Modesto. He weighs 270 pounds, and like Kimo, he is powerful and aggressive. Freeman worked with Shamrock in Lodi at Lion's Den. He continues his impersonation of Kimo in Puerto Rico.

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