Archive for March, 2010

Pete Parta entered in a No Gi comp in Palmy, his first grappling comp. He won two matches, beating a purple belt. He then just lost a match for a place in the final. The impressive thing about this is that Pete got lumped in to the advance division against blue and purple belts who have been training for 3 – 5 years plus. The only grappling Pete has done is through Lockdown so it was a great effort.

Guess we will have to keep it quiet that a TaeKwon Do blackbelt gave BJJ guys a run at grappling.

Lockdown’s head coach, Gareth Lewis, won gold at the No Gi BJJ comp in Auckland. He was in the Purple, Brown and Black blet over 98kg division. No points were scorred against him and he won the final with a Brabo choke in 3mins. Was good to see the coach back in action.

Frank Shamrock was training under his brother, Ken, in submission wrestling. After only 8 months of training he had his first fight in Japan, over the next 3 years he fough numerous people in many countries. Frank built a reputation as a fierce competitor who was always in shape, so he was signed to fight Kevin Jackson.  At the time it was impossible to exaggerate the high regard that Jackson was held in at the time. Simply said, Jackson was considered one of the elite all time great athletes in any sport amd the worlds greatest freestyle wrestler at the the time. Nobody gave Shamrock a chance in the match, except Frank himself  ‘my wrestling coach at the time competed against Jackson, so we knew what to expect’.

At the strat of the match Jackson was surprisingly aggressive on the feet, punching himself into takedown range where he clinched briefly and then took Frank to the mat. As he settled in to a comfortable top position, Frank trapped his right arm, swung his leg over Jackson’s head, and locked in the armbar forcing Jackson to tap just 14 seconds in to the match. It was a shocking match that forever changed the public opinion about cage fighters being second rate competitors unable to contend against Olympic-Caliber athletes. From that moment on, ultimate fighting moved from the area of spectacle and in to the realm of sport. In those 14 seconds, Frank Shamrock changed MMA forever.