Uncaged

Copyright © 2012 by Frank Shamrock and Charles Fleming

Foreword copyright © 2012 by Mickey Rourke

All rights reserved

First edition

Published by Chicago Review Press, Incorporated

814 North Franklin Street

Chicago, Illinois 60610

ISBN 978-1-61374-465-9

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Shamrock, Frank.

Uncaged : my life as a champion mma fighter / Frank Shamrock and Charles Fleming ; foreword by Mickey Rourke.

     p. cm.

 ISBN 978-1-61374-465-9 (hardcover)

1. Shamrock, Frank. 2. Martial artists—United States—Biography. 3. Mixed martial arts—United States. I. Fleming, Charles. II. Title.

 GV1113.S52A3 2012

 796.8092—dc23

 [B]

2012021340

Interior design: Jonathan Hahn

All photographs courtesy of Frank Shamrock, Inc. unless otherwise noted.

Printed in the United States of America

5 4 3 2 1

This book is dedicated to my loving wife, Amy, who stole my heart the day we met and has never once offered to return it.

And to my amazing children, Frankie and Nicolette: you have taught me so much about living.

FOREWORD BY MICKEY ROURKE

INTRODUCTION

1 CHILDHOOD

2 WARD OF THE COURT

3 SHAMROCK BOYS RANCH

4 JAIL

5 THE LION'S DEN

6 JAPAN

7 PANCRASE AND THE ROOTS OF MMA

8 GOING SOLO

9 AMERICAN CHAMPION

10 GOING HOLLYWOOD

11 FEUDS AND THE FIGHT BUSINESS

12 FIGHTING BARONI, ORTIZ, AND CUNG LE

13 FATHERHOOD

14 RETIREMENT

15 FIGHT NO MORE

16 COMING TO TERMS

17 THE MARTIAL WAY

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

INDEX

Frank Shamrock started out life in a very hard and unfortunate way. He was more interested in reading books and expanding his mind than in hanging out with the other toughs and fighting in the streets. Perhaps those lonely early years molded him into the unique fighting champion he became, understanding that only through hard work, dedication, and a disciplined work ethic could one compete at such a high level. Developing, exploring, and studying the scientific aspects as well as the physical demands of fighting gave him an edge over the others. His brains; his unconditional competitive nature; his outstanding physical attributes, which he honed and developed; his conditioning; and his technique all added up to an arsenal that armed him for his struggle to succeed. I'm speaking of everything from learning how to relax to turning up the gas and finishing off his opponents.

Watching Frank fight over the years, I've noticed that he was so confident and relaxed, you could see him enjoying the moment. His charisma and bravado, although it angered others at times, garnered him millions of fans. To me, Frank is foremost an early legend of the UFC. It's unfortunate that we weren't able to see many of his early Pancrase bouts against all of the Japanese legends. Since Frank was a pioneer of the sport, we didn't get to see him as much as we get to see the fighters we enjoy so much today, now that the sport has expanded so much. But later in his career, his exhilarating
fight against the bigger and stronger Tito Ortiz once again put Shamrock on the map, cementing his hall-of-fame status in the UFC. His mesmerizing and overwhelming pummeling of Phil Baroni let us see Shamrock's offbeat character once again as he mimed to Baroni, “I'm putting you to sleep now.”

I was at Frank's last fight in Sacramento, sitting in the dressing room as he was smiling after the rising UFC star Nick Diaz had badly beaten him up. It was very obvious in that fight that age and all the past battles had caught up with him, and Father Time was giving him his walking papers. The reflexes and timing were just not there, and no matter how hard one trains, they don't come back. It took me back to my boxing career, when my old trainer Bill Slayton said, “We're all going to fight one last time—we just don't know when that night is going to be.”

Frank Shamrock is definitely one of my favorite MMA fighters of all time and will continue to be. Of course, I would rather see him inside the ring than out, with his career and battle scars plastered across that handsome face. Shamrock has definitely given his all to the growth and popularity of the UFC or MMA, however you want to categorize it. I also love the fact that Frank ain't shy about how to have a good time outside of the ring—sometimes a bit too much of a good time.

If I ever needed Frank, day or night, wherever he was, he would be there for me in a heartbeat. I love that man like a brother.

—M
ICKEY
R
OURKE

Do not pray for an easy life, pray for the strength to endure a difficult one.

—B
RUCE
L
EE

I grew up in rural California, raised by a single mom with four kids. My dad had left us when I was three, which was OK with me. I didn't remember him anyway. Truthfully, I could never remember all that much about my early childhood. I do remember being hungry. I was always hungry. Our family survived on state welfare and I was a very active child. I felt like I was starving all the time.

I also remember being locked in the closet for hours. This was a common punishment administered by my stepdad, Joe. The punishments got more severe as I got older, but as a little boy nothing was scarier than that linen closet. I was a timid child, soft-spoken and shy. I was afraid of the dark. Joe knew this and used it to his advantage, making an example out of me so the rest of the kids would stay in line. I spent countless evenings sobbing quietly in the dark, staring at the tiny light around the door hinges, listening to my family having dinner or watching a movie or sharing a laugh without me. It was a stabbing reminder of all that was wrong with me.

I was lucky. According to the state shrink, I was really smart and just unchallenged in academics. Yeah, that was my problem—I wasn't challenged at school. I never told anyone about the punishments;
not my shrink, not anyone. We didn't talk about what happened in our family.

School was my only escape. I loved learning and reading. Even though I was bullied and teased for being an emotional and intellectual freak, I just could not get enough of school. I would read every schoolbook for every class attended as soon as I got them. Books became my life; the characters in the stories became my only friends. My life sucked. My family sucked. I would have done anything to get away from them.

When I was twelve, I broke the law and found a way out. Armed with a junior high school education and parented by the state of California, I left home and never returned.

This is the story of what happened to that little boy, a story that I have always wanted to tell the world but didn't have the courage to. This is the truth about what a person can endure and still blossom.

I wrote this book to give strength to the human spirit. My hopes are that it gives a voice to a child who is afraid to speak, inspiration to those who are challenged, and motivation to help yourself and fellow human beings. I also hope that these words show you that nothing is impossible if you never give up your dreams.

I believe that there is a champion in all of us. No matter the circumstances, each and every human being should be encouraged to achieve excellence in life. You should live your own dreams.

Words and love hold powers unimaginable. I share them both with you now.

My earliest memories are of living under a train trestle. Our apartment in Redding, California, was in a big building, and the trestle was the most enormous thing you can imagine—huge and loud, and right over our heads. The trains would go by and the whole world would fill up with a mechanical, quaking sound.

Redding is the star of Shasta County, sitting in the Central Valley of California, the rich agricultural flatland that is scooped out of the middle of the state. Located exactly halfway between the Mexican and Canadian borders, and wrapped around the Sacramento River, it was a kind of dumping ground and very diverse. It was all poor people, mostly whites and blacks and some Latinos, and everybody was living on welfare. My family must have stood out—my white, redheaded mother and her gang of Mexican-looking kids. My real dad was long gone.

My mom, Lydia, was a hippie chick, a flower child from Los Angeles. She had grown up in a strict family of Jehovah's Witnesses. Her father was an engineer, a straight-arrow sort of guy, but her mother was a little wild. She liked to drink and party. So she left her husband and ran off with an alcoholic named Nelson. My mom went from
being a rich, private-school girl from a stable and normal home to living in a trailer park with two addicts. Her family and father were not Jehovah's Witnesses at all, but her mother, Jackie, got obsessed with the religion and ran off with a church elder. He, in turn, was especially mean to her. They were fanatical about the religion, or what they called the “truth.” After that, Lydia and her brother, Mike, spent their youth in the back of a station wagon while their mother went door to door preaching the word. Their new home was a single-wide trailer with a built-on addition for her brother.

She met my dad at a Jehovah's Witnesses church assembly. He was Mexican. His name was Frank Alicio Juarez II. His family were all Jehovah's Witnesses, too, and they lived in Lancaster, out in the desert north of Los Angeles. Frank was good-looking, very dark with Mexican-Indian features, and he worked with his hands. Lydia had already had my older brother, Perry, and I am pretty sure was pregnant with my sister Robynn when she got together with Frank. I never knew anything about their father; he was gone before Frank came along.

Soon Lydia was pregnant with me. I was born on December 18, 1972. Nine months later, my mom and Frank had another child, my little sister, Suzy. But soon after that, Frank left, too. My mom was a young single mother, without any job skills and without any higher education. She had started having kids when she was sixteen, before she even finished high school, mainly so she could leave her mom. So now she was living on welfare with four children under six years old in a crummy apartment building under a train trestle in Redding, California.

For a while she had a relationship with another man, whom I think she married. But pretty soon he was gone, too, and it was just us again.

My memories are cloudy, very scattered but happy. We were always together—me, my mom, and my brother and sisters. We
didn't mix much with outsiders, but we had each other. We liked being together and we always had fun. I remember going to a preschool surrounded with manzanita trees. I remember playing under the train trestle with Perry. There was a creek there, and a kind of wild area on the other side. After a while we found out there was a golf course past the overgrowth. We started sneaking onto the golf course to find lost golf balls and turn them in for money.

My mother had always been a pretty happy person, and even in our meager circumstances we were a pretty happy family. She always had food on the table, and we were always doing things together.

I was a happy kid, very energetic and physical. I was also smart. One day I was going to kindergarten, then the next day I wasn't. I don't know exactly what happened, but my mom had come to school to talk to the teachers, the next day I was in first grade. Somehow I had already learned all the stuff you were supposed to learn in kindergarten. I don't remember learning it. I just remember
knowing
it.