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Middleweight Championship: Frank Juarez Shamrock (submission) vs. Tito Ortiz (submission) |
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This match did something extremely rare in the legitimate sports world, it lived up to it's hype. Shamrock, of course, had fellow Alliance member Maurice Smith in his corner. By design, this match played out similar to the legendary Smith vs. Mark Coleman match. It once again proved that it's not how you start the match or whether you control the majority of it, it's whether you have the skill and conditioning to close the match. Both men came into the match in top shape, and probably had legitimately trained as hard as ever for the superfight. The thing is, maybe the only guy who can match Frank when it comes to stamina, Tsuyoshi Kosaka, is in Frank's own corner. This match wasn't just about a title, it was about who was the best middleweight fighter in America or arguably the world. Obviously there was a lot of pride on the line, maybe even more than there should have been because Ortiz had beaten two of Frank's friends from the Lion's Den, Jerry Bohlander and Guy Mezger, and Frank had beaten Ortiz's training partner John Lober. The interesting thing about this is by beating Mezger, Ortiz avenged his only UFC loss, and while by beating Lober, Frank avenged his only MMA loss. Shamrock's game plan was that he'd beat Ortiz quickly like he'd done to Jackson or Zinoviev if he could, but if he couldn't he'd wear him down until he was "ripe for the pickens." Due to Shamrock having more than one plan, he wasn't bothered in the least when he couldn't win immediately. Sure, he would have liked an easy payday, but he knows his conditioning is so top notch that his opponent is going to tire before he does, so it was really no big deal. Due to Shamrock's seemingly unlimited amount of stamina, he can stay active for the entire fight. This guarantees that he'll be able to make his opponent burn energy because they'll have to react to what Frank does, to move to adjust to their opponents move. Beyond his conditioning, Frank is so flexible that he's able to pull off more than most. If it's possible to counter at any point, Frank is generally going to be smart enough to recognize this and skilled and conditioned enough to pull it off. "Shamrock really gave a clinic on state of the art fighting from your back, staying very active and wearing Ortiz down as much mentally as physically, taking Tito's offense in stride. Ortiz never even looked close to having Frank in trouble, despite spending most of the fight on top," wrote Miko. The story of most of the fight, at least to the average viewer, was Ortiz though. Ortiz was able to take Frank down repeatedly without that much trouble, and he threw punches while Frank had him in the guard. These did more damage than the punches Frank was throwing because the guy on top has much better leverage to throw his blows. While the uninitiated would say that Ortiz was controlling the fight, the reality is that, while Frank didn't necessarily have Ortiz where he wanted him, he could do far more toward tiring Ortiz out by having him in his guard then he could from the top if he was in Ortiz' guard. Frank never laid around and let Ortiz try to make him react so he could pick his defense apart. Instead, he constantly worked from the bottom, dictating as hyper a pace as you can with someone on top of you. Frank wouldn't let Ortiz rest. Ortiz would throw his punches in spurts and Frank would keep them from doing any real damage. When Ortiz would try to rest, Frank would get really active sliding around to force Ortiz to do the same or punching to force Ortiz to block them. Forcing Ortiz to constantly work or adjust really sucked the gas out of the former Abbott sparring partners tank. Due to his takedowns and punches from the top, Ortiz won the first round and looked pretty dominant in the second round because he still had the energy to be really active. I don't want to make it sound like Ortiz was in bad shape or anything, he could have outlasted most guys if he didn't beat them before it came to that. Ortiz did what he had to do here. Even though Ortiz's punches weren't doing any real damage, they were helping him score enough points that he probably would have won a decision. He just didn't have the ability to get past Frank's defense and do anything that had the slightest chance of putting Frank away. Frank's use of his legs to strike was much better here due to working with Mo, but he couldn't really get any big strikes in before Ortiz took him down. Frank didn't really come alive with offense until after he had been cut on the left side of his face at about 1:55 remaining in the third round. Even then he really only connected with one punch, which was the same as Ortiz caught him with. Ortiz was clearly getting tired, but he was still able to take Shamrock down. The fourth round was the only one that wasn't predominantly Ortiz in Frank's guard. Frank was bobbing and moving in stand up, while Ortiz was not as effective as he could have been because he was tiring . Frank used kicks to open up the upper body, but Ortiz took him down before Frank could do any real damage. Frank's defense being so impossible to get by was breaking Ortiz down mentally. There was just nothing Ortiz could do other than punch, and although that will get you points from the judges, it was doing way more toward tiring Ortiz out than it was toward putting Frank away. With about a minute left in the round, Ortiz threw three elbows in a row at the head with Frank right in front of him, but not even one of them hit Shamrock. Frank turned it on after getting a reversal then standing up. Frank looked like a man possessed, turning up the heat big time with a flurry of strikes because he knee Ortiz was tired enough that he could take him. He knew that if he could turn the tide in his favor, Ortiz would revert back to his strength, his ability to take Frank down. Frank wasn't necessarily ready for Ortiz to shoot in, as Ortiz did it when Frank was trying to kick, but he certainly was looking for it to happen soon. Ortiz didn't get Frank cleanly, so Shamrock reacted quickly, locking Ortiz in the front guillotine. Frank was choking the life out of Ortiz, and it looked like he might win the fight right here. Instead, Frank let it go when Ortiz rolled to try to free himself so he could stand up and throw strikes down at Ortiz. I think the choke sapped almost all the remaining life out of Ortiz because Frank wasn't holding him down or anything, so if Ortiz was fresh, he would have had no problem rolling away from Frank then standing up. Instead, Ortiz tapped before Shamrock did any real damage with the blows. The dismay displayed by Ortiz after the match was classic. Frank is sometimes a guy that beats you in quick, highly impressive fashion, but he can also sneak up on you. That Shamrock came back and won quickly after spending the better part of 19 minutes on his back really made for a dramatic come from behind finish. That's what made the fight, and it's the stuff legends are made of. "Mike's right, the guillotine was the real finish of the match. In this way it was a little like the Taktarov-Abbott title fight. Tak caught Tank in a guillotine. Tank finally escaped but was so weak he was pretty finished. The same happened here to Tank protege Tito Ortiz, who was finished after Frank's guillotine," wrote Miko. Frank tried to be a legend in his own time by giving the Middleweight title back to Bob Meyrowitz so the next crop of guys could come up since there was no one out there he could get excited about fighting. Meyrowitz refused to take the belt back though because he's the greatest in UFC history and he's earned the right to keep the belt as a monument of his success whether he chooses to compete again in UFC or not. Shamrock generally came off poorly during this whole segment. Basically, first he was too good from everyone, then he'd fight a worthy opponent as long as they gave him enough money. In his defense, his contract called for him to publicly retire and vacate the title if he wanted to fight elsewhere before his non-compete clause ran out, so he had to come up with some line of b.s. The best matchup UFC might be able to present right now is Shamrock vs. Bas, as both men have barely ever lost in the second half of the decade and even if Bas is a "heavyweight," he probably weighs about 10 pounds less than "middleweight" Ortiz. Shamrock could win, but Bas is a better and more dangerous fighter than Ortiz, so Shamrock should not have a hard time getting up for that fight. "I think a Bas match would be interesting since Bas has strong stamina also. It would be up to Frank to do the takedowns if he wanted the fight on the mat, since Bas would be happy to keep the fight standing," wrote Miko. Bas is succeptable to takedowns, but that's more from the really strong guys that outweigh and outpower him. I think Frank would somehow find a way to win, but this one could go either way. "The strongest rumors with Frank mostly relate to fights against Sakuraba and Renzo Gracie. The Renzo rumor is probably stronger since Sak's supposedly signed to fight Royler Gracie (why? Don't know). To be honest, I think Sak would give Frank trouble," wrote Miko. I can't see him winning, but it wouldn't be a 20 second fight either. In Pride, it could definitely be a really long one. The best match involving Shamrock right now would be Shamrock vs. TK, but since they train together we'll never see that rematch. Sakuraba is excellent, but I don't see Sakuraba as being on Kosaka's level, he doesn't have the stamina, size or power. "One reason I think Sakuraba would give Frank trouble is that Shamrock has done best against wrestler/brawlers. His fight with TK was evenly matched, and Horn gave him all he could handle before he pulled out the win in overtime," wrote Miko. I thought Horn's performance was at least a bit overrated. He's mainly a defensive fighter, and he was thinking defense first, second and third. While he controlled the fight for a while, he mainly played safe, so there was almost no threat of him beating Shamrock unless it went to a decision (granted, it did go to overtime). Even playing safe, he still eventually made a costly mistake. To my mind, you have to work as hard as you can without being sloppy to try to finish Frank because he's just too much of a student of the game. If you are out there with him for 20-25 minutes, he'll eventually find something he can exploit to beat you. Getting back to Shamrock vs. Ortiz, this wasn't a fight, it was two men executing the game plan they felt would give them the best chance of winning. If your idea of action is only things that do a lot of damage to the opponent or have the potential to end the match, then you won't think this is that good of a bout. They never stopped working for the nearly twenty minutes, and the reason no one did a lot of damage was that the defense was just too good. Ortiz would neutralize Shamrock's strikes by taking him down, and then he was on top where he could throw better strikes even though Frank had him in the guard. Shamrock couldn't stop the takedown, but once Ortiz got him down he could never him him hard and there was never an opening for a submission. This was a really even fight in that there was never a moment where one man had a tangible lead on the other. Ortiz was winning on the scorecards, but that lead wasn't from doing anything that would knock Frank down a notch. Shamrock was winning the battle of stamina, but that meant nothing until the very end when that springboarded him to his big flurry for the win. Still, with Shamrock involved, there was always the chance that the fight could have ended at any moment so that keeps you watching intently even though some people will say the fight looked the same for almost the whole time because of the basic Ortiz on top in Shamrock's guard. For the most part, even though it wasn't a one move win off a mistake like we saw against Jackson, that is close to what happened again. Due to the nature of the finish, this match is a lot better if you saw it live or on tape before you knew the outcome. This fight overshadows Smith vs. Coleman in that Ortiz, while the more tired of the two, was still winning until the final seconds of the match. The other thing is that Frank was able to put him away while Smith couldn't knock Roidman down even though Roidman could barely stand without both hands on his knees for support. I felt that Bas' come from behind win over Kosaka was more exciting because Kosaka had that match won, while I never doubted that Frank was going to win this because I could see what he was trying to do and how it was slowly working. Frankly, if it wasn't for that incredibly bogus standup by normally excellent official Big John McCarthy, Kosaka wins that match. The stand up happened though, and Rutten wound up putting on an incredible display of striking to knock Kosaka out with just 45 seconds left. That is the best shoot match I've seen so far in 1999, but Shamrock vs. Ortiz is certainly a Shoot Match Of The Year Candidate and one of the top three bouts in the history of UFC. 4:50 of round 4. Jason: This was a great fight. It shows that when a fighter sticks to his game plan (ie: Smith vs. Coleman) that he can come out on top. Shamrock's game plan was simple, to wear Ortiz out. He let Ortiz punch himself out even though that took almost 20 minutes. Shamrock basically just let Ortiz shoot on him and go to the mat where Shamrock could control Ortiz's strikes most of the time. Shamrock showed that he could get out of Ortiz's mount at the end of round 2 when he just popped out and got Ortiz's head in almost a choke, then spent the last 10 seconds talking to Maurice Smith in his corner. When Shamrock felt Ortiz was done he just elevated out of the mount and finished with strikes. On the the replay, as soon as Shamrock came out of the mount, Smith in Shamrock's corner knew it was over. Shamrock proved that he is one of the best conditioned fighters in the world, certainly in North America anyway, and also one of the smartest fighters in the world. Miko: A really fun match to have watched live because there was so much heat between them and the way the fight built added to the suspense. Prior to this match Ortiz had just bulldozed Lions Den fighters Metzger and Bohlander, showing powerful punching and takedowns. It didn't hurt that he also had a big weight advnatage, coming in at around 217-220 for the fights, despite the limit being 199lbs. Ortiz played unstoppable force to Shamrock's immovable object, but this time he found someone he could not throw around like a ragdoll. An excellent fight with alot of suspense. Special Thanks to: Jason Higgs & Miko Kubota - Michiku Pro 4:50 of round 4. |
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