Cung Le vs Frank Shamrock
If you haven't watch this fight yet and would like to keep the result a surprise, I advise you to stop reading. I'm not going to insert a cut here because even I watched it a month after the event occurred.
This fight seemed to be important for EliteXC and falls just underneath Kimbo Slice in drawing power. The two sons of San Jose met in their home town to find out which was the better "mixed martial artist". I'm not trying to insult either by my use of quotes but I did so for reasons that will be revealed later. Both of these fighters were fairly unknown to me. I've never heard of Cung Le and when I hear the name of Shamrock I think of Ken rather than Frank.
Both fighters put on an awesome show and either of them deserved to win. The fight really boils down to two key points, boxing and distance. When you take a look at Frank Shamrock's career, you'll notice an outstanding fact. Thirteen of his twenty-two wins come by submission. His brother is famous for being a submissions expert. So Frank Shamrock's strength is in the ground game. For some reason, Shamrock decided to measure the size of his balls and stand with Cung Le inside his world of six knockout victories. I have no right to judge since it is a fighter's decision to do so but when you take away the ground game, including submissions, wrestling and ground and pound, you're taking away many, many aspects of mixed martial arts. What this fight turned out to be was a boxing match.
Alright, they decided to make it a boxing match. Why did Cung Le win? Is it because Cung Le is a superior striker? I don't think so. Le is an amazing striker but Shamrock held his own. Shamrock had great boxing skills and landed many hard hits. In addition to that, the man has a very strong chin. Many strikes landed clean in that fight but neither of them went down. (Frank was rocked at one point but Le stood him up)
Back to the question, why did Le win? It's true that Shamrock's arm had been severely damaged throughout the match but I think we can delve a little deeper than that. Throughout the fight, it was obvious that Shamrock played completely into Le's distance. Le is unique, he has great striking power with his hands and his kicks are damaging as well, from his traditional martial arts background. What this translates into is a two-tiered distance that Le can fight at. At a shorter distance, Le can hit you with punches. If you move back, you're still in range of his kicks. To be completely out of his range, you have to have a large amount of space between you and him. Shamrock simply could not find away around that dilemma. He stood in range of his kicks for the most part and moved in for strikes, both of which were in Le's range. Shamrock was consistently being attacked and eventually his body gave way to injury.
Now, when I think of Shamrock I think of "has been" mainly because of Ken's unimpressive recent MMA record but there is still life in that name. Frank proved to be a great fighter still, at age thirty-six. Ken's son is making his way into the MMA world. I still think Ken can be a great coach. This fight, even in losing, proved a lot for the Shamrock name. I look forward to more fights from this legendary family of mixed martial artists.
This fight seemed to be important for EliteXC and falls just underneath Kimbo Slice in drawing power. The two sons of San Jose met in their home town to find out which was the better "mixed martial artist". I'm not trying to insult either by my use of quotes but I did so for reasons that will be revealed later. Both of these fighters were fairly unknown to me. I've never heard of Cung Le and when I hear the name of Shamrock I think of Ken rather than Frank.
Both fighters put on an awesome show and either of them deserved to win. The fight really boils down to two key points, boxing and distance. When you take a look at Frank Shamrock's career, you'll notice an outstanding fact. Thirteen of his twenty-two wins come by submission. His brother is famous for being a submissions expert. So Frank Shamrock's strength is in the ground game. For some reason, Shamrock decided to measure the size of his balls and stand with Cung Le inside his world of six knockout victories. I have no right to judge since it is a fighter's decision to do so but when you take away the ground game, including submissions, wrestling and ground and pound, you're taking away many, many aspects of mixed martial arts. What this fight turned out to be was a boxing match.
Alright, they decided to make it a boxing match. Why did Cung Le win? Is it because Cung Le is a superior striker? I don't think so. Le is an amazing striker but Shamrock held his own. Shamrock had great boxing skills and landed many hard hits. In addition to that, the man has a very strong chin. Many strikes landed clean in that fight but neither of them went down. (Frank was rocked at one point but Le stood him up)
Back to the question, why did Le win? It's true that Shamrock's arm had been severely damaged throughout the match but I think we can delve a little deeper than that. Throughout the fight, it was obvious that Shamrock played completely into Le's distance. Le is unique, he has great striking power with his hands and his kicks are damaging as well, from his traditional martial arts background. What this translates into is a two-tiered distance that Le can fight at. At a shorter distance, Le can hit you with punches. If you move back, you're still in range of his kicks. To be completely out of his range, you have to have a large amount of space between you and him. Shamrock simply could not find away around that dilemma. He stood in range of his kicks for the most part and moved in for strikes, both of which were in Le's range. Shamrock was consistently being attacked and eventually his body gave way to injury.
Now, when I think of Shamrock I think of "has been" mainly because of Ken's unimpressive recent MMA record but there is still life in that name. Frank proved to be a great fighter still, at age thirty-six. Ken's son is making his way into the MMA world. I still think Ken can be a great coach. This fight, even in losing, proved a lot for the Shamrock name. I look forward to more fights from this legendary family of mixed martial artists.