Jake Shields‘ first fight back since losing to Georges St-Pierre at UFC 129 in Toronto is a main event against up and comer Jake Ellenberger. Shields took some time out during the difficult lead up to the fight to talk about the recent and sudden passing of his father, Jack Shields, his opponent, and his close friend and training partner Nick Diaz.
Shields has had a rough lead up to his upcoming fight, his father passed away on August 29, just a few short weeks ago.
Most people who lose one of their parents would take time away from work to grieve and get over their loss. Shields, however, decided to soldier on and follow through with his upcoming bout at UFC Fight Night Live: Shields vs. Ellenberger in New Orleans, Louisiana.
“I mean it [pulling out] crossed my mind, but very shortly you know? Just maybe the first 10 or 20 minutes I was kind of in shock I just didn’t really know what to do,” Shields told Bleacher Report. “It kind of hit me completely as a surprise and I kind of didn’t know what to do, but I made the decision to move forward and take the fight.”
Jack wasn’t just Shields’ father, he also acted as the manager of his fight career, something that seems to have played a role in Shields’ decision to fight on.
“Yeah, I definitely thought he would want me to fight. He wouldn’t want me just to stop, he was very proud of me fighting and he was involved and would’ve definitely wanted me to move forward and fight,” Shields said. “That was definitely part of the reason why I decided to fight, part of the reason was for myself as well.”
Knowing that his father would want him to fight made the decision to fight easier for Shields to make, but not only losing his father, but his manager as well definitely had Shields a bit worried.
“It was a little freaky him being my manager though, you know he is the one closing all the deals, he’s always at the fights with me in my corner. It’s gonna be—I’m sure a little weird when I get there and he’s not there, but that’s another thing I’ll have to deal with,” said Shields.
The loss of his father and manager is definitely tougher than any fight Shields has been in during his career, but his display of character and resilience are things you simply don’t see in people that often.
Everyone who follows American football remembers the Monday night game Brett Favre played in two days after the death of his father against the Oakland Raiders. Favre threw for 399 yards and four touchdowns and had the best single game passer rating of his career. It will be interesting to see whether or not Shields does something similar to Favre. He definitely feels he has some extra motivation, so who knows what will happen come Saturday.
” Yeah you know definitely, it’s extra motivation to go out there and win and put on a great performance,” Shields said.
Ellenberger is an up and coming fighter, at just 26 years old and only five fights into his UFC career. He is 4-1 in the UFC right now and on a four fight win streak that he hopes to continue against Shields this weekend.
Beating Shields would be a massive boost to Ellenberger’s stock in the UFC welterweight division and definitely would move him closer towards a title shot. Shields knows this and he also knows that he has a lot more to lose than Ellenberger does, but he has a policy of taking all comers when it comes to fighting.
“Yeah of course, he has more to gain then I do,” Shields said. “You always want to do the opposite, you always want to be fighting the guys that you’re going to gain more off of, but it doesn’t always work that way. The fight was offered to me and I always take who’s offered to me so I want to go out there and make an example of him and show that he doesn’t belong with me.”
Shields can’t complain too much about his opponent either because the UFC has been treating him pretty well since he got here.
“Two main events and a co-main event, they [the UFC] have been treating me really good so I’m not going to say no if they want me to fight.”
Although Ellenberger has great wrestling and powerful punching, Shields doesn’t see him as being any more of a threat than some of the other wrestlers with powerful striking that he has faced and beaten.
“I think he’s similar to Henderson or Lawler, big power, probably not as good as Henderson though, Henderson is a complete beast, but, he is tough, Ellenberger is really tough,” Shields said. “I don’t want to underestimate him. He does have that similar style, the big power punching wrestler with not great jiu-jitsu, I’ve done well against these guys in the past.”
When asked whether or not Ellenberger or the other power punching wrestlers Shields has faced in the past were similar to current welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre he was pretty quick to say no.
“GSP is a little bit different, he is one of the best pound for pound fighters in the world, has really good wrestling at a different level and the Jiu-Jitsu and Striking,” Shields said.
The striking was what made the difference in Shields’ title shot against St-Pierre. Even though he lost in the striking battle, Shields’ over all stand-up game maybe isn’t as bad as some of the fans like to make it out to be.
The fact of the matter is that Shields is 26-5 in his MMA career and all but one of his five losses have come by way of decision. All fights start standing up and he has beaten great stand-up fighters in Dan Henderson, Paul Daley, Carlos Condit, Martin Kampmann, etc. Obviously, he uses his wrestling and American Jiu-Jitsu to win his fights, but defensively, not many guys have been able to beat Shields up while the fight is still standing.
“I’m constantly working on it [my striking], getting it better,” Shields said. “For one, every fight my stand-up is better, also I think a lot of these fans don’t pay attention. I’m going out there and fighting great strikers and not really getting hit much, using my stand-up to close the distance and take them down.”
Of course, we won’t see Shields winning a bunch of knockout of the night bonuses, but his stand up is good enough to allow him to implement his grappling game in most fights and he knows this.
“You know I’m a grappler first and stand up fighter second. I’m always working to make it [my striking] better, I feel I have made big improvements from GSP to now.”
In touching on the St-Pierre fight, one of the main reasons Shields lost was due to the fact that Shields was unable to take him down, something Shields has been able to do in almost all of his fights. Which begs the question, how good is St-Pierre’s defensive wrestling? Shields says it is the best he has seen.
“I’ve always been able to pretty much take everyone down. It was probably partially my fault, I probably should have gone for a lot more take-downs, but also yeah his [St-Pierre’s] take-down defense—he is just so fast, he has such good balance, he is probably the hardest guy to take-down in the sport,” Shields said.
Prior to his fight with St-Pierre and Kampmann in the UFC, Shields was the middleweight champion under the Strikeforce promotion. After defending his title against Dan Henderson, his contract wasn’t renewed despite winning and the UFC signed him on.
Times have changed and Strikeforce was purchased by Zuffa LLC, the parent company of the UFC, this past spring. Having fought for both organizations, Shields gave his thoughts on what he expects will happen with the Strikeforce brand and they aren’t different from pretty much anyone else’s.
“You know I don’t really know, the only people who really know are probably Dana White and the UFC,” Shields said. “It kind of seems that way, with having pulled [Alistair] Overeem out and bringin him over and Nick [Diaz] and Cung Le [to the UFC], it seems like they are slowly bringing over the big Strikeforce fighters. Over the next year or so, they will probably kill it.”
Shields mentioned Nick Diaz, his good friend and training partner, who was initially brought over to the UFC to fight St-Pierre for the title, which was the case up until recently when Diaz failed to meet his media obligations on back to back occasions. UFC president Dana White made the call to pull Diaz from the title shot and sign Carlos Condit instead.
White may have been a little too trigger happy with Diaz because shortly after pulling him from the fight, Diaz ended up replacing Condit in the BJ Penn fight on the same UFC 137 card as Condit vs. St. Pierre.
Shields is very good friends with Diaz, but has a good working relationship with Dana White and the UFC so he has chosen to stay neutral on the issue.
“I haven’t talked to Nick, I figured he is probably getting bombarded by so many people that have called up, I’ve kind of just left him alone,” Shields said. “Luckily, it will give him the opportunity to fight BJ, but you know it sucks getting pulled out. It is a really tricky situation, I’m good friends with Nick and Dana has always been fair to me. I don’t really want to take sides in that situation, but I’m glad Nick’s still getting to fight and hopefully he won’t do the same thing again.”
With Diaz now fighting in the UFC and being in the same weight class as Shields, people are wondering whether or not he will stay at 170 pounds or if he will move back up to 185 pounds again.
“Yeah I have definitely considered it [moving up],” Shields said. “If Nick was to beat GSP and he was the champ I would move up, but right now with this fight getting pushed back it makes me reconsider things and see what happens.”
Shields will probably move up if Diaz ever does become the welterweight champion.
“I’ll stick around and see what happens with Nick and BJ and GSP and for now 170 is my best weight, but I’m willing to go up if Nick is the champ,” Shields said.
With Diaz in the UFC along with the recent UFC signing of Alistair Overeem and Cung Le, it is pretty clear that the UFC is picking up as many stars as possible to ensure that they can put on a steady flow of high profile fight cards. The UFC is also gearing themselves towards a more mainstream audience.
In recent news, one of the biggest announcements to date was the UFC’s new seven year deal with the Fox television network. A deal that will surely multiply the growth of the sport. Shields gave us his thoughts on the Fox deal and what it means to him.
“I think it’s [the Fox deal] great, you never really know exactly what it means, but it sounds like it probably means more people are watching it which transfers into more money for us,” Shields said. “Anything that is more money for the fighters is obviously good.”
The deal with Fox places the UFC in a position similar to many of the mainstream sports, but is it really mainstream yet? Shields definitely feels that it is.
“I think it’s mainstream now,” Shields said. “It’s still growing acceptance, but big MMA movies are starting to pop out. It’s like the new boxing thing, movies are coming out now, it’s on Fox, all the young people are watching it and that’s the next generation, it just keeps growing, it’s mainstream now.”
We had a chance to talk a little bit about how much growth there has been in the last 10 years and Shields simply finds it astonishing to have gone from a time where everyone thought he was a pro-wrestler to now having fought in front 55,000 fans in Toronto.
“In my opinion, it’s Mainstream now. Of course it’s still growing, but pretty much everyone knows what it is now,” Shields said. “When I tell people I fight in UFC, I don’t have to explain. I’ve been fighting over 10 years and I remember when you’d tell people they’d be ‘oh like pro-wrestling’ and luckily it’s not that way anymore.”
Shields is taking his fight career one fight at a time, but one thing that remains is that he wants to fight the best.
“I just take it one fight at a time. I like to fight the big names, the Fitchs, the Koschecks, the guys that are out there winning.”
Ultimately, Shields wants to go for that belt again.
“Eventually, I don’t know when, but my plan is definitely to get that belt so I am working really hard to get another shot,” Shields said.
Obviously the outcome of Condit vs. St-Pierre will play a role in Shields’ path back to the title, so the fight is a fight of interest to Shields. Although Condit is a great fighter, Shields doesn’t give him much of a chance. Shields beat Condit and lost to St-Pierre so he is a common opponent of the two and provided his thoughts on the matchup.
“You know it’s impossible to pick these fights, but if I had to choose, I would definitely pick GSP,” Shields said. “I think he holds a lot of advantages over Condit. I think he is a lot stronger, faster, a better wrestler and probably has better submissions. It’s gonna be a tough fight for Condit. But, as we’ve seen before, anything can happen in this sport.”
Anything can happen in this sport and that is part of what makes the sport so exciting. One could compare MMA with the cycle of life, you can be in full control and in one moment everything can come to a screeching halt. It is how one deals with these moments that determines their strength of character and resilience.
Shields has shown his strength of character by staying in his fight despite the passing of his father Jack. With that in mind, I asked Shields to leave people going through a situation similar to his with a few words of advice.
“You know it’s tough, but all you can do is move on through life.” Shields said. “I think people can’t let it hold them back too much and of course you’re going to grieve and have those moments, but all you can do is keep moving forward and accomplish things and do good things with your life.”
Leon Horne writes primarily about MMA, but loves all sports, follow him on Twitter: Follow @Leon_Horne
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