Press Release
In late 2009, Frank Shamrock had put together a camp and was mentally ready to return to fighting.
But his body had other ideas. In the middle of training, Shamrock’s back went out. And when Shamrock’s young daughter wanted to wrestle, Shamrock just couldn’t move.
“I thought, ‘I can’t even wrestle with my 2-year-old daughter. How can I fight if I can’t even give this time to my daughter?’” Shamrock recalled.
After nearly 15 years of ruling the mixed martial arts world, Shamrock, born Frank Alisio Juarez, retired June 26, from the sport he helped pioneer. In a dramatic, emotional ceremony before his hometown fans in San Jose, California as well as a national audience courtesy of SHOWTIME® during the STRIKEFORCE and M-1 Global co-promoted “Fedor vs. Werdum” event, Shamrock walked away from the sport, taking a fighter’s bow for the last time while his wife, holding their baby daughter, stood proudly in the cage alongside STRIKEFORCE Founder and CEO Scott Coker, SHOWTIME’s Ken Hershman, and CBS’s Kelly Kahl.
“It’s time for the young kids,” Shamrock said. “It is their time to shine.”
Long before STRIKEFORCE became the hottest brand in MMA, with live shows on CBS and SHOWTIME, Shamrock was building the sport one punch, kick and submission hold at a time.
The first middleweight champion in both STRIKEFORCE and UFC history, Shamrock is one of the few mixed martial artists who can honestly say he has done it all in MMA. As a STRIKEFORCE analyst for CBS and Showtime, his legacy will continue to grow.
Shamrock, 37, compiled a career record of 23-10. As a fighter, whether he was victorious or not, Shamrock consistently put on entertaining fights. He prides himself as a “sports entertainer.”
His toughest physical battle, he says, was against Tito Ortiz. The two battled in 1999. At 5’ 10” Shamrock was the smaller man against the 6’ 2” Ortiz. Shamrock overcame his bigger opponent and forced Ortiz to quit because of strikes.
Against Enson Inoue in 1997, Shamrock triumphed even though he was outweighed by about 30 pounds, in a fight that Shamrock said was his toughest mental encounter. Shamrock battled back from near-defeat to knock Inoue out in the second round.
In 2007, Shamrock put Phil Baroni to sleep with a rear naked choke, in a classic STRIKEFORCE middleweight championship encounter, where both men heavily trash-talked in the build-up to the fight. Shamrock called the fight his toughest spiritual battle. He suffered a knee injury before the fight, yet still entered the cage.
“Everything that could go wrong, went wrong,” Shamrock said. “He showed up just ready to kill me. That was a real test of my soul.”
Shamrock learned how to fight as a teenager. Born in Los Angeles, Shamrock grew up poor and his childhood was filled with violence. He became a ward of the state of California at age 12.
He eventually found Bob Shamrock, who ran a home for troubled teens. A teenage Frank Juarez changed his name to Shamrock to honor the man who helped turn his life around.
Shamrock began training in submission fighting and then found himself competing in Pancrase in Japan.
He beat Bas Rutten by submission in his first professional fight. Eventually Shamrock would become the King of Pancrase.
On March 10, 2006, Shamrock knocked out longtime rival Cesar Gracie with a straight right hand in 21 seconds in the main event of the first STRIKEFORCE MMA event in history, which played host to a North American record, capacity crowd of 18,265 at HP Pavilion in San Jose.
“I was lucky to participate in two or three generations of the sport,” Shamrock said. “I was able to be competitive at all three levels. I just tried to be the best I could throughout my career.”
Shamrock has devoted much of his recent time to promoting STRIKEFORCE, even if he is humble about it.
“I feel like I own a piece of STRIKEFORCE because I broke bones in that cage,” Shamrock said. “But my role was limited. I was a fighter. The guy who has really sacrificed and did the hard work is Scott Coker.”
Even in retirement, Shamrock is still showing his knack for innovation.
In a rare move for MMA, Shamrock announced his retirement on live TV from the middle of the cage. His speech, full of emotional thank-yous came amidst thousands of admiring fans shouting his name.
“I knew I had to give that speech,” Shamrock said. “I think that was an important moment in our sport.”
Shamrock sees himself as a success story because he is able to retire relatively young and still remain closely tied to the sport. He owns a gym in San Jose, where he teaches mixed martial arts.
He is one of the faces of STRIKEFORCE as the lead analyst on live STRIKEFORCE events on SHOWTIME and CBS.
“Most of these guys, when they are done, they are done,” Shamrock said. “They are broke and crippled and bankrupt. This is a story of hope. You don’t have to be done and broken up and have nothing left. You can have another career.”
As an analyst, Shamrock has won rave reviews for his performance. As a former top-level fighter, he brings credibility to the broadcast booth.
“It still scares me to death,” Shamrock said of broadcasting. “It stresses me to no end. I just try to be very prepared and very honest and try to say everything that I believe in my own mind. The base of what I know comes from teaching martial arts.”
In retirement, Shamrock, who is married to his wife Amy and has a 2½-year-old daughter named Nicolette, and a 21-year-old son named Frank, hopes to continue to be an effective advocate for the sport.
“STRIKEFORCE is going to take over the MMA world,” Shamrock said. “I am going to help them with that.”