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Cung Le beats Frank Shamrock in San Jose
By Zach Arnold | March 29, 2008
Interesting show tonight. Full results here. Plus, a broken forearm. Some people must have won decent money betting on Le to win. Adam Swift labels the main event as ‘an instant classic.’
Also, Frank’s wife went to the hospital.
Topics: Media, MMA, StrikeForce, Zach Arnold | 59 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Great fight, the crowd was electric and Le and Shamrock provided them with one hell of a treat.
Horrible undercard. Great Main Event. Bad Ending (No KO). So overall I had it 4 out of 10, with the 4 being all due to the main event. Haven’t been this entertained since Huerta/Guida.
I’m glad Shamrock lost. He is now 2-2 since his comeback. So much for being the best. Now it is time for Cung Le to see somebody with decent ground skill actually try and take Cung Le to the ground.
Zack… you should use a more ambiguous title for posts directly preceding fights. This one just spoiled the Frank/Le fight for me, by way of headlines in my RSS reader…
45,
Le has a background in wrestling. Taking him down and keeping him down will not be easy.
He was taken down easily by Sammy Morgan.
So after Le beat Shamrock, people still won’t give him the credit he deserves? Does he need to beat Anderson Silva before people give his due? So what him Sam Morgan took him down? He KOed Morgan. He’s 6-0. Undefeated. People need to STFU and admit Le is the real deal.
Isn’t a broken arm a TKO? With the number of kicks to the head (especially the last one where Frank ducked into a roundhouse), I doubt it was the broken arm that made him quit. With the beating he took, I’m not surprised he didn’t get want any more.
Is Beatdown after the bell on?
The Le/Sha,rock fight was fantastic. The undercard was okay, nothing special but nothing bad. If the Shamrock/Le fight doesn’t get any fight of the year nominations later this year, then at least give the thrid round nominations for round of the year. But over all it was a fantastic fight. I was looking forward to it for months and I was very much satisfied.
xtremely hard to take Cung Le down. His kicks will keep you away and his wrestling skill take you down first before you take him.
He is dangerous in many ways. Even the well-round Shamrock was beaten in all rounds.
His weakness on the ground can be overcome relatively easily in a short time with good training from some Judo pros.
I only saw the main event and really enjoyed it. Shamrock was Le’s kicking bag for most of the fight and he did not have an effectove answer to Le’s game. Pesonally, I think that all the taunting Shamrock displayed last night actually showed he was frustrated but still wanted to keep his arrogant face for the crowd and the cameras. Huge congrats to Le, who’s an exciting a respectful figher. I think I’m not the only one who’s sick and tired of Shamrock’s big mouth. Yeah, he can be an exciting fighter, but it’s hard to put up with all his BS. He does it before the fight, after the fight (not this time, I don’t think (-; ) and even during the fight. He deserved this beating imo.
“So after Le beat Shamrock, people still won’t give him the credit he deserves? Does he need to beat Anderson Silva before people give his due? So what him Sam Morgan took him down? He KOed Morgan. He’s 6-0. Undefeated. People need to STFU and admit Le is the real deal.”
And thus the cycle continues. We start with Frank Shamrock, a fighter with no quality wins in 9 years, who recently lost to Renzo Gracie. Renzo Gracie, the MW fighter that BJ Penn, a LW, beat. But Frank erased all doubts with a spectactular victory of ~.500 fighter Phil Baroni…
Now Shamrock gets beat by Cung Le, a 1-dimensional fighter with the KO power of your average featherweight. Seriously, it looked like Cung was point-fighting most of the match. But instead of admitting that Frank Shamrock was exposed as a phony, you’d prefer to pretend that Cung Le actually a top contender.
Please. Stop.
I’d seriously take a decent UFC fighter, like Jason McDonald, over Cung Le or Frank Shamrock. If either of those fights ever happens, bump this post, and I’ll lay money on it, matching you dollar for dollar.
IceMuncher,
I couldn’t have said it better myself.
I have never seen so many kicks to the head land, yet so little damage be done.
Heck, there are many UFC Welterweights I would pick over Cung Le…. GSP, Hughes, Koscheck, Sanchez, Fitch, Alves, & Davis for starters.
It’s sad when there’s a main event of that quality, and many ‘hardcore fans’ online don’t say one word about the amazing effort both men gave.
Nuclear crowd reaction, an incredible stand-up war, and non-stop action for 3 solid rounds…but you come here it’s all about “GOOD! Frank lost and I’m proven right – he fucking sucks!” etc.
“Frank Shamrock was exposed as a phony”
This is one of the most ignorant things I’ve ever read, and it proves that:
a. you know nothing about combat sports, b. you’ve never been hit in your entire life, c. you decided in advance that regardless of what happened in this fight, you were ready to disrespect both men (so why even bother watching the fight?)
“Cung Le, a 1-dimensional fighter with the KO power of your average featherweight”
This proves the same three points as above.
I’m going to continue visiting this site for information, because it’s the best on the web, but the regulars are so ignorant and disrespectful it’s hard to take anything they write seriously.
It is not the quality of the action in the main event that is the issue. It is the fan’s opinions of the quality of the athletes in that main event which is stirring up so much debate.
Going into this fight, I knew that neither was a top level fighter. So no matter who won, the winner wouldn’t be in the Top 15 Middleweights in the world. Yet the way some fans are talking, you would think Cung Le could bear Anderson Silva.
As for some of the comments posted above….
1. I don’t see anything wrong with saying Cung Le has the power of a Featherweight. How many head kicks did he land that did nothing to Frank Shamrock? It’s not like Shamrock has some rock hard chin either.
2. I do think Shamrock has shown to be a phoney. Since his return to MMA, he is 2-2. He has been outstruck in one fight. He has been outgrappled in another fight. And they weren’t just one fighter getting outclassed by another. It was just one fighter (Shamrock) showing how old his skills are compared to the current crop of competitors.
At the end of the day, this fight was exciting, but proved nothing about Cung Le. I still stand by my statement of the UFC Welterweights running through him. Do you honestly believe he could even contend with Koscheck, Sanchez, GSP, or Fitch? The guy would get wrecked.
Not to mention that his style of kicking leaves him open to a straight right hand over and over and over again. Something that when Shamrock pulled the trigger on (and he is not the greatest striker), he stunned Cung Le with time and time again.
To go one step further, and to show this isn’t just a UFC/Strikeforce debate…
I also think Robbie Lawler, Jorge Santiago, Matt Lindland, Frank Trigg, & Kazuo Misaki would beat him pretty easily.
Just watched the fight. Great fight, really good fight. Le was excellent. I dont think it was as simple as Shamrock needing him to take him down as I dont think Frank would of easily got him down and then kept him down. Even after he was rocked badly by Shamrock just before the end of the round he nailed Shamrock with a great kick to the head and u could see in Frank’s face that that was it and he was done.
I love the UFC as much as anyone. But the nuthuggery has got to stop. In a night where Cung Le beat Frank Shamrock, one of the best MMA fighters ever when he RETIRED from the UFC, it’s no place for people like you to downplay his accomplishments.
Sure, Anderson Silva is the best middleweight fight there are right now. But that doesn’t mean we can’t give accolades to Le and Shamrock. Give me a break here!
Do you honestly believe he could even contend with Koscheck, Sanchez, GSP, or Fitch? The guy would get wrecked.
Your opinion is just as valid as anyone. However, don’t think that your opinion is fact. Unless these guys fight, anything is conjecture and wishful thinking in your fanboy imagination. Get out of your UFC-centric world. Otherwise, you’d think that Tim Boetsch, Frank Edgar, and Houston Alexander are nobodies. Yes, these guys would have been “destroyed” by the UFC veterens when they first entered the Octagons. But they proved you wrong, because God forbid that there are fighters out there who can match up with UFC fighters.
I criticize Pride fans for their Pride-centric world, thinking that Pride fighters are the best before they were tested by other fighters. I think UFC fans are starting to replace the Pride fans with their arrogance.
Ultimo_Santa Says:
“It’s sad when there’s a main event of that quality, and many ‘hardcore fans’ online don’t say one word about the amazing effort both men gave.”
Because it wasn’t promoted by the UFC (and please, these aren’t hardcore fans). Thats why some people call the card an “instant classic” or one that had the best fight of the year on it and others give it a 4 out of 10. And they will tell you straight up that they are being objective. As I have said before, “their UFC nuthuggery knows no bounds”. Thats why after the UFC loses couture, Sylvia, and probably AA; you will get a post on here explaining how the heavyweight division is not important and that people don’t really want to see heavyweights. Now thats what I call spin.
My favorite
“It’s not like Shamrock has some rock hard chin either.”
No? How many times has he been knocked out in 34 fights? Once. And Frank always fought much heavier opponents. Frank has always been known to have a great chin, maybe not a Mark Hunt chin, but he can take a shot.
When Cyph gets on here calling for the UFC nuthuggery to stop, well thats when you know that some of them have gone overboard.
Cyph, I commend you for being honest.
I’ve always called it as I see it. The fight last night was amazing and as an MMA fan, you can’t think otherwise.
Unfortunately, there are certain number of people out there calling it a fix. Every single Cung Le fight ends up being called a fix. I don’t know if it’s racism or that MMA fans have a higher percentage of morons out there than the average population.
It takes a Shamrock to get people up in arms, I love it.
I think the thing about Cung Le is his kicks were either doing little damage and as said, he was just point fighting or Frank Shamrock’s head is the hardest thing around.
The second round was essentially them sparring in public with all of the smiling, laughing, high fives, etc.
“The second round was essentially them sparring in public with all of the smiling, laughing, high fives, etc.”
‘Sparring’ implies that they weren’t hitting each other full-force. They were. Shamrock smiles and talks to his opponents to throw them off, and that was his plan in R2.
And saying that Le doesn’t have KO power, etc. That’s fine…but having an athlete like that, at his weight, kicking you in the ribs, head, and arms over and over again – I don’t care who you are, or what your chin is like. You’re going to get banged up, and in Frank’s case, break a bone.
I would be VERY interested in an Anderson Silva vs. Cung Le fight, especially if Silva decided to take Frank’s approach and try to out-strike him. Can anyone out-strike Cung Le at 185?
More than anything I would be extremely interested to see if another minute on round 3 would have resulted in a Shamrock KO. He looked basically out at the end of that round and I think that more than anything was the great contributer to the fight ending.
“I would be VERY interested in an Anderson Silva vs. Cung Le fight, especially if Silva decided to take Frank’s approach and try to out-strike him. Can anyone out-strike Cung Le at 185?”
are you saying that you think Cung Le is a better striker than Anderson Silva? i don’t think you’ll get many backers on that one
It may be pushing it to say that Cung Le is a better striker than Anderson Silva in MMA since Cung hasn’t really been tested enough yet. But keep this in mind. Cung Le is a former world San Shou champion. Anderson Silva’s Muay Thai is one of the best in MMA but was Anderson Silva ever a Muay Thai world champion? No. Would he fair well in competitive Muay Thai against the world’s best Muay Thai boxers? No. I’m tired of MMA fans saying Anderson Silva’s Muay Thai is world class. He’s not. When someone says they have world class BJJ, you’d imagine them to be a BJJ Mundial champion (like BJ Penn) or an ADCC champion (Roger Gracie?) right?
^skill wise he’d have me as a backer any day of the week. Power wise Anderson is much bigger, (and taller) so thats a different ballgame.
Yeah Cung Le looks on the small side at middleweight, at least compared to bigger guys like Yushin Okami and Anderson Silva. Cung Le used to compete at 179 pounds in San Shou I think and I’ve seen him weigh in at around that weight in Strikeforce before. How much weight does he cut? In my opinion, MMA needs unofficial weigh-ins the night of the fight like boxing to compare how much fighters weigh in at the night before the fight and how much they weigh the night of the fight. That was one of the cool things about boxing I liked.
Cung vs Anderson is a really weird mismatch. Cung is accurate and has the whole ‘if I hit you 40 times its gonna hurt’ thing going for him, but he is really untested. To steal from Snowden, Frank was more interested in Mortal Kombat taunts than finishing Cung Le off. It was a total pride thing to where he wanted not only to win, but to win in an over-the-top fashion.
Cung would be throwing backspin kicks and glancing high kicks while Anderson would just unload on him.
Anyone who can break bones with a kick has power. The number of shots that Cung threw would have KOed any regular fighter. The fact that Frank ducked into a roundhouse and still was okay (you can tell it hurt from his facial expression) speaks volume about his chin.
Having said that, I don’t think Cung has a chance against Silva. One, Silva has much better ground game to go with his excellent striking. But the biggest reason is that Silva has a monster light heavyweight frame barely cutting to 185, whereas Cung has a welterweight frame who doesn’t cut weight at all. Cung Le should be thinking of challenging GSP rather than Silva. We know GSP has superior GnP, but his striking is nowhere near Cung’s.
Cung should do well in the UFC’s welterweight division. All he really needs is to perfect his sprawl and JJ defense and he would do very well. It’s a perfect place to improve his ground game considering the ground game-centric division. Chuck’s proven that striking with superior sprawl can win many fans and win as well. I wouldn’t even call him a welterweight CroCop considering the fact that his striking is arguably much more rounded and superior than the Croatian.
Frank had a kid when he was 16? Jesus.
My only comment: Great fight.
Keep in mind that Cung Le won his ‘San Shou’ world title by defeating journeyman fighter Shonie Carter. Hardly anything to write home about. Half the guys he beat in San Shou had never competed in the sport before. I’m sure Anderson could be a muay thai world champion if his opponents had never practiced the style and were given the rules of the bout a few days before the event.
Surprise, surprise IceMuncher and 45 having a negative (most likely pre-determined) opinion of a non-UFC event?!?!?!
You’ve got mma writers calling it “instant classic”, FOTY ’08 candidate and then people on here are looking for anyway possible to basically deem it to be crap.
I can’t believe that Frank Shamrock has a 19 year old son. He’s 35 years old so yes, he’d have to have been a father at 16. I’ve heard that Frank Shamrock had a checkered past before Bob took him in but wow.
Btw didn’t I just read that he had the 19 year old son from a PREVIOUS MARRIAGE? So Frank was married at 16? Or maybe he got married a couple years after the kid was born and then divorced?
This has nothing to do with the UFC.
I will very readily admit that I could not stand either Frank Shamrock or Cung Le before this fight. I have always thought they were both overhyped and would get beaten easily by the top tier Middleweights of the world.
When this fight was made, I was both happy and mad. Happy because one fo these guys had to lose, and then be exposed. Mad because the winner would get hyped beyond what his skill level really is. And I think in hindsight, I was correct on thinking like that. Cung Le is now being hyped as if he is some mythical fighter with these crazy techniques. Put him in there with UFC reject Jorge Santiago…. Le would not win that fight….
As for Shamrock… Hopefully his arm takes a long time to heal… Good bye to Franky. He is all talk, and yet can’t even beat Renzo Gracie or Cung Le…. He is just another fighter from a different generation who can’t compete with the current talent in today’s sport. Plain & Simple….
“When this fight was made, I was both happy and mad. Happy because one fo these guys had to lose, and then be exposed. Mad because the winner would get hyped beyond what his skill level really is.”
LOL @ this nerd
Zach, flame posts like this should be deleted. They add nothing to the conversation.
“When this fight was made, I was both happy and mad. Happy because one fo these guys had to lose, and then be exposed. Mad because the winner would get hyped beyond what his skill level really is. And I think in hindsight, I was correct on thinking like that. Cung Le is now being hyped as if he is some mythical fighter with these crazy techniques. Put him in there with UFC reject Jorge Santiago…. Le would not win that fight….”
Ironically enough, Ultimo_Santa, one of your posts from a week or two ago is a perfect answer to your request.
“Ultimo_Santa:
Sorry, Jeremy (not that Jeremy) – I’ll stop expressing my opinion about fights, because that’s not what this blog is about.
Oh wait – it totally is.”
I am still plowing through all the comments.
Chuck said it best: “I was looking forward to it for months and I was very much satisfied.”
Best fight ever, i loved it, it gave me the chills, goosebumps, you name it, classic fight!
Shamrock could have turned the tables had he used his submission prowess but his ignorant ass thought he could stand with a stand up master… how foolish; either way, super entertaining and I’m almost sure he’ll ask for a rematch.
Really, Shamrock’s ego was his own undoing. He just had to try to beat Le “at his own game”, instead of taking the smart route.
I’m seeing some rumours that Kimbo will be facing James Thompson. It’s definitely a step-up in terms of the first two fights he’s had, but there’s I still think it’s a pretty safe fight for him too. Thompson has the “big show” credentials but he’s got a suspect chin and there’s definitely some holes in his game that someone like Kimbo (who has good technical punching) can feast on.
They’re slowly building Kimbo up. Just look at the progession of opponents at the time he fought them:
Cantrell – lost four in a row.
Tank – lost three in a row
James Thompson – lost two in a row.
If he wins beats Thompson, and wins in his fight after that, he might even get to face someone that is coming into the fight off of a win! 🙂
Icemuncher and 44huddle, these are the sorriest opionated fools i’ve ever read on a honorable sport.
I sat in Section 115, Row 26, Seat 25. We could hear the kick blows all the way up 26 rows! wtf. Keep in mind that Cung Le kicks into Shamrocks defensive blocks and the power still pounded through him.
In stand-up, Cung Le is #1 hands down. On the ground if he is good at getting out of it then, wtf cares? It’s like the Gracies when they took everyone to the ground… people were saying OH he’s weak cuz he can’t strike. WTF CARES!? OMFG HAHAHA If you can avoid the ground cuz you are #1 on strikes then that’s just being smart. It’s that simple people
I had fun.
I will pay to see Ken/Frank.
I’d even pay to see Frank/Le II.
It was an entertaining fight.. Great fight? Maybe not .. but it was entertaining.
When a fighter is very exciting fans often mistake that for skill.
I call it “the pride syndrome” just look at Phil Baroni… They put him up against mediocre opposition in Pride and with him knocking some of them out in exciting fashion and being a personality fans took him for more then he was.
Sure Cung Le has an unique style and very flashy standup but I would take Anderson Silva, Robbie Lawler or even Chris Leben to win the standup against him and a fighter like Chael Sonnen or Trevor Prangley to take him down and punish him.. And against decent submission guys like Jason Mcdonald and Ed Herman would take him down and submit him.
Because lets be honest here..We haven’t seen much of him on the ground..He hasn’t got real good power and Cung Le is as small middleweight as they come.
Some of the biggest lightweights are walking around at the same weight as him before they start cutting.
In his next fight I hope Cung will face someone that will show the world what I already know.. He’s vastly OVERRATED.
I thought he showed pretty good power dropping Frykland several times in their fight with his hands.
“Surprise, surprise IceMuncher and 45 having a negative (most likely pre-determined) opinion of a non-UFC event?!?!?!”
It was an exciting event, but don’t build it into something that it’s not. The #26 and #37 ranked college basketball teams may have an exciting game, but I’m far more interested in watching teams in the Top 10 play each other. And only with MMA fans will you have the #26 team have a terrific showing against the #37 team, and have people claiming they could take on UCLA or North Carolina.
I get annoyed when people start talking about guys like Cung Le and Kimbo like they’re top tier fighters. Or, in Frank’s case, that he’s still the fighter he was a decade ago. None of them have shown anything that deserves that sort of praise, at least not yet.
Fwiw, I’m looking forward to the 2nd round of the Dream LW tourney. The first one had too many one-sided fights with established stars facing guys I’ve never heard off. The next one should be great though.
Pontus said: “In his next fight I hope Cung will face someone that will show the world what I already know.. He’s vastly OVERRATED.”
You’ve vastly overated your knowledge about martial art. MMA is not all about ground and pound…It is also about how not to be grounded and pounded. Cung Le has not been tested on the ground bcause no one is able to do so, so far.
You think lost guys like Tony F, Sam, and Frank are more stupid than you are??? They all knew and tried for the
ground but end up were on their back.
MMA is about offend and DEFEND. You might be hyped by some frick actions like “single bullet” thta narrowed your perception about MMA.
A round fighter should know his strong and weak points. “Know yourself, know your enemies; hundred fights, hundred win”
You reminded of before the Afghanistan war. Those Taliban wakos said: “we are not scare of American, et them go into the ground war…” LOL. We are not stupid to not to pound them with our air superior before destroy them on the ground. Now, you know the philo.
??Sure Cung Le has an unique style and very flashy standup but I would take Anderson Silva, Robbie Lawler or even Chris Leben to win the standup against him and a fighter like Chael Sonnen or Trevor Prangley to take him down and punish him.. And against decent submission guys like Jason Mcdonald and Ed Herman would take him down and submit him.
Why this guy doesn’t mention OKAMI??? You won’t be gratified if Asian beats this ugly Vienamese American? Le is just way too fast for Leben to handle on feet and too slick for Herman to submit. I don’t see either Travor/Cael holding him down on his back while doing G&P.
I think Le has potential to make it to the top 20 soon and he will give a hard time to many top rankers.
I hope Jorge (Santiago) will be the first to challenge his belt to ensure that Strikeforce has good competition within its league.
I certainly don’t believe Kimbo, at this point (or likely any point in time) is a top tier HW fighter. But he definitely is a person of interest who seems to be a legitimate drawing entity.
The problem with rankings, is that they’re largely flawed and I’m sure after watching this year’s NCAA tourney with all its big upsets and Davidson’s cinderella run you know that rankings mean nothing when the fight/game starts.
I’m really not sure what my opinion on Le is as of yet, but one thing’s for sure – I’m not going to pass him off dismissively like a lot of people seem to want to do.
People keep saying that Cung Le is no good until he fights a top fighter. Now, having beaten Shamrock, instead of giving credit to Le, people instead dismiss Shamrock as not that good.
If you lose, you suck, but if you win, it’s because your opponent sucks. You can’t win with the haters.
Am I allowed to say that Cung Le is still a decent prospect at this point, but not a top fighter in the division as I don’t believe Shammy has been relevant to MMA since the year 2000? And his other opponents have provided interesting showcases of his skill but proved little except that he is clearly capable of handling mid-to-lower tier fighters?
Or is that too anti-Cung by saying I don’t think he’s a top fighter yet?
Kimbo had a sweet shirt.