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Frank Shamrock:
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This EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW is an expanded version of a special Q & A featured in the Black Belt Buyer's Guide 2008. ___________________________________________
Frank Shamrock occupies a unique position in the world of mixed martial arts. At age 35, he’s old enough to have participated during the fledgling years of MMA. He became King of Pancrase in Japan and won the Ultimate Fighting Championship middleweight title, defending it four times before retiring from UFC competition. He is still considered a dangerous title contender at an age when many athletes transition out of their fighting careers. Shamrock is one of a few International Fight League team coaches who still competes, but he is likely the only one who is still actively courted by the largest promotions for his drawing power and his winning ways. He recently founded the San Jose-based Shamrock Martial Arts Academy. He prides himself on running more than simply another MMA gym, and focuses on community-centered programs with families and charities. Is there any particular art that you’d like to be more familiar with? Yes, tai chi. I think it’s one of the better healing and focusing arts. I’m into a lot of healing these days. Is there going to be a Frank Shamrock action figure? It will probably be next year. Right now it’s just an idea, but there are a couple of potential manufacturers looking at it. I want [it] to do something different. I want it to be able to kick or punch or have my limbs fly off or something. Do you have any tattoos? Yes, I have one tattoo. It’s a feather on my toe. It’s in reference to my Native American heritage [and] comes from a belief that when I’m a young man, if I focus hard enough, I can fly. So I put a feather on my toe to help me. Do you have children? What do you feel is most important for parents to give their children? I do. A 19-year-old son, little Frank, and [one on the way]. Parents need to be able to give their kids a sense of self-worth. That’s probably the biggest thing that I see kids don’t have. It’s difficult [to pass on] because most parents are lacking in it. We see it a lot in martial arts where the parents really need the lesson but are bringing their children there to try to learn new lessons. They are realizing they can’t teach their kids something they don’t have or know. What’s your favorite martial arts movie? It would have to be Enter the Dragon. The philosophy, ideas and energy of it tell a lot about life. It’s truth, and that’s why it’s always going to be there. You see the truth. There may be a lot of story and [filler], but there’s a big piece of truth you can’t run away from. You’ve talked a lot about healing, truth and self. Where does that drive come from? I’ve always been my own self, doing my own thing. Being in this sport was the first time I realized how important it was to be yourself and to be truthful and to stand for something. The biggest thing [the sport has given me] is the realization that you have to be truthful—otherwise, you’re not a good martial artist and you’re not a good person.
The school is going absolutely fantastic. We’re in expansion mode; we’re opening up two more schools by the end of [2007], first quarter [2008]. We started a 50-and-over boxing class—which I’d never heard of, but I had guys say we needed one. So we started it and we’ve got 18 participants. We’ve really branched out with our charity work. We’re trying to do a deal with [breast cancer organization] Susan G. Komen For the Cure. I’m working with the autistic community up here in San Jose. What’s your biggest fear? My biggest fear is not being connected to the community or to the world—being alone. Especially after all the work I’ve done to try to build this big family. That’s my fear. I think it’s the most important part of my life. [Hopefully] I will look back and go, “Wow, this is why it was so important.” At what point in your life did you truly feel like a mature adult? I’m hoping that’s around 40. I think I’ve got about five more years. If you had taken another direction in life besides fighting and martial arts, what might that have been? I would have been a physical therapist and I would have been a history teacher. I love history. I think it’s the future of our people because we’re going to do the same thing over and over. If you study history, you’ll learn more about who you are and who we are. Do you have a hobby or skill that has nothing do with MMA? Reading. And sewing... yeah. I can sew. When did you learn that? Was that a self-sufficiency thing? I’ve known how to hand stitch for a long time. During the week of a fight in Japan, you wear the same outfit all the time. If it falls apart, you just kind of stitch it back up. When I was 25, I got good at sewing. When I got married, I bought my wife a sewing machine. She never cracked it open, so I broke it open and read the manual—because I love to read—and now I know how to use it. That’s so funny because you know about the cliché of buying stuff for people that you want for yourself. You thought you could sneak that one in. Ha ha, right. It’s truly mine now. You’re an adventurous kind of guy, is there any activity or endeavor that you’ve wanted to do, but haven’t yet? The next thing on my list is to shoot guns. It’s not really hard, it just sounds like fun. I’ve been skydiving, bungee jumping, sword fighting and everything horribly dangerous you could ever imagine. I don’t really desire it so much anymore. My son almost died last year. He was training to be a sword swallower and he hurt himself doing it and almost died, so that kind of ended my wild, "do anything" streak. I just realized that I am mortal and ... my son is mortal. Maybe that was the start of your life as a mature adult. I don’t know, but I still feel like I’m 12 years old.
I just like to live in the truth and tell the truth. It makes me unpopular and especially with people who want to make lots of money with people who don’t have the information. It makes me very unpopular. Sometimes that extends to the general public, because people don’t want to hear the truth. They want to hear what sounds good, [what] looks good and [what] entertains them. What do you think of the way MMA has been represented in print? Does it get the kind of coverage it needs or deserves? I don’t know. Readers are getting all the correct lies and misinformation. But are they getting the truth? No. Are they getting information to build and grow the sport? Yeah. Is it the right information? Is it truthful? No. Do you play video games or read comic books? Could you see yourself portrayed in either medium? No, [I don't play video games], but I’m in three or four [of them]—the last four versions of the UFC video game. But I don’t get residuals from those. I’ve been in a lot of Japanese comics, a few here in the United States. Nothing giant or mainstream, but I’ve had a lot of fans who characterize me and send me their pictures, which is pretty cool. What the strangest business proposition you’ve ever gotten? Hmmm ... there are so many weird, odd things. You know, people come up with these great ideas. Businessmen, entrepreneurs, they come to me ... but I guess the strangest one would have been a guy that wanted to make a perfume out of my sweat. What’s the biggest risk you’ve taken and won? It would be my return to fighting. It would be all of the fighting 'cause I was never a fighter, I never cared to fight, I never cared about fighting. I was a martial artist. I fought everybody around the world and each time was a huge risk—and each time I won. Do you want to compete as long as Randy Couture? Do you think he’ll make it to 50 as a competitor? I would do it until I was 80 if I could still do what I wanted to do ... if I could still accomplish those things that I wanted to accomplish. Couture will retire this year. People always say, “Who do you want to fight? Who do you want to challenge?” I’m not going anywhere to challenge anybody. I’m going there to challenge myself. That guy just happens to be in front of me and he happens to have a name and a face and everything else ... but when I walk into a fight, I’m not fighting the guy. I’m fighting myself. I’m doing my art. I’m testing me, I’m testing my soul. I’m showing the world what it is, but the [opponent] I could care less about. I know it sounds weird, but everybody else is thinking about this person they’ve got to beat. If you were guest editor for Black Belt, who would you put on the cover that you haven’t seen yet—and why? I don’t know. Certainly not me. The only person that I can think of ... would be my boxing coach, Tony DiMaria. He’s a true martial artist and he doesn’t even know it, [just] like I never knew it. I started fighting with no knowledge of fighting or martial arts, for that matter. I just started fighting. I became a martial artist because everything you need to be a good martial artist is necessary to survive as a professional fighter. All the things came to me organically. I had to stretch because I was tight. I had to learn massage because I had muscle trauma. I had to learn meditation because I had these huge stressful events. All these things made me a really good martial artist without me even knowing it. Tony is a wonderful martial artist and he doesn’t even know it. He’s from the world of boxing. Have you told him that he is? I haven’t told him yet. I say that because I see all these people who are supposed to be martial artists and they’re not being that way. They’re caught up in this vision of what they think a martial artist is supposed to be. Then I see other people like Tony who are real, true, honest-to-goodness martial artists and they don’t even know it. I think that is the core of what we’re supposed to be doing. He’s the guy I’d put on the cover. About the author: Edward Pollard is the managing editor for Black Belt. |
