So Close: Frank Shamrock vs. Sakuraba

The most notable bout leading into Sunday’s Rizin Fighting Federation event was a grappling match that pitted a 48-year-old, broken down from years of professional wrestling and beatings from much larger men, against a 44-year-old whose body told him to retire seven years ago.

Needless to say, Kazushi Sakuraba and Frank Shamrock neither looked nor performed on Sunday as they did in their best days. The grapplers never went to the mat, with time equalizing Sakuraba’s once-vaunted single leg takedown and Shamrock content to work in the clinch.

Before they hand-fought for 10 minutes to a dull draw, there was an air of excitement to finally see the two compete. Once, they were great, and when their greatness peaked at similar points, there was no more desired bout in mixed martial arts than Kazushi Sakuraba vs. Frank Shamrock.

Frank Shamrock was the fighter of the 1990s. After years of hardening battles in Pancrase, he left the promotion to test himself under vastly different rules. In Pancrase’s pro-wrestling inspired rule set, closed-first strikes were illegal, fighters wore shin guards, and unlucky grapplers trapped in a submission could reach the ropes to break the hold. In NHB (for no-holds-barred), or MMA as it would soon become known, combatants had far greater freedom to inflict violence on their opponents. Frank Shamrock became quite skilled at inflicting violence on his unfortunate opponents, even those larger than his 192 lbs. frame.

A submission grappler at his core, Shamrock developed a reputation as the best and perhaps first all-around fighter in the world. In 1997, he entered the UFC and needed only 16 seconds to become its first middleweight (199 lbs.) champion.

Accolades swarmed Shamrock as he successfully defended his title four times. He won 89% of a fan vote for Fighting Sports Newsletter’s 1997 middleweight of the year. In both 1998 and 1999, he won the Wrestling Observer Newsletter shooter (fighter) of the year award, and the same publication crowned him the fighter of the decade for the 1990s.

There was little argument to be made that Shamrock was not the best middleweight in the world until a pro wrestler from the other side of the Pacific made a name for himself.

The same night Shamrock began his reign at middleweight, Kazushi Sakuraba made himself known by submitting the much larger Marcus Silveira, a BJJ black belt, at a time when black belts simply didn’t get submitted. Wins over Vernon White and Carlos Newton in 1998 proved his spot near the top of the division.

The impressive victory over Newton was the first to trigger speculation regarding a Sakuraba vs. Shamrock match. “This victory by Sakuraba [against Newton] was huge, given the decisive nature in which he won it,” the Fighting Sports Newsletter wrote in an issue following the famous bout. “An eventual showdown between Sakuraba and Frank Shamrock would be a classic.”

In 1999, that sentiment would only grow larger.

The UFC targeted a middleweight title clash between Shamrock and Vitor Belfort for March 1999. Struggling in the midst of a political campaign against the sport in the United States and with pay-per-view providers fleeing from their product, by 1999 most of the UFC’s top stars had departed for competing organizations or pro wrestling. Shamrock and Belfort, coming off a brutal finish of Wanderlei Silva, were the top two stars remaining in the company. It was the best fight UFC could put together.

Shamrock turned down the fight. According to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, he had a seminar scheduled for the Arnold Classic fitness expo that conflicted with the date. Given the UFC’s financial issues at the time, it’s likely UFC wasn’t able to meet Shamrock’s contracted pay, and he wasn’t willing to take a pay cut to fight an opponent as dangerous as Belfort.

Prior to his next fight, Shamrock placed a clause his UFC contract that stipulated he was able free himself of the deal by announcing his retirement. He agreed to fight Tito Ortiz in September 1999 at a reduced rate, but he wouldn’t continue fighting for less than he felt he was worth. After defeating Ortiz in the most memorable UFC bout of the era, Shamrock, 26, retired from the promotion as the best fighter in the world, freeing him to negotiate with any company he pleased.

When the Shamrock bout fell through, Belfort went to Japan, where the Pride Fighting Championships immediately pitted him against their best middleweight, Kazushi Sakuraba. Sakuraba handled Belfort comfortably and earned the judges’ decision. The victory established the proud professional wrestler as one of the top two middleweights on the planet. He rounded out 1999 by submitting his next three opponents, drawing Pride’s first sellout crowd, and beginning his historic rivalry with the Gracie family.

After the Belfort bout, and especially by the end of 1999, Sakuraba vs. Shamrock was the most anticipated potential bout among hardcore fans. Black Belt magazine’s March 2000 rankings showed the two standouts tied for the world’s top middleweight ranking. Two months later in the same publication, Stephen Quadros featured a match between the two at the top of a list of the most intriguing match-ups possible in the sport.

In line with fan sentiment, Sakuraba and Shamrock were at the top of each other’s wish lists. According to Sakuraba in his first autobiography (translated unofficially by an online MMA Translations project) titled Me, after a victory at Pride 6 in July 1999, he announced, “Next, I want to beat Frank [Shamrock].”

In a 2000 interview with Gong Kakutougi Plus translated at Global Training Report, Shamrock stated that Sakuraba was the “only one left who I really want to fight with.”

For years, the fight was negotiated and terms were close at times, but they never grew nearer than close.

While Sakuraba prepared for a May 1, 2000, tournament match with Royce Gracie, the Gracie side demanded special rules for contest, including an unlimited number of 15-minute rounds. As the bout began to fall apart under the weight of Gracie’s demands, the Wrestling Observer Newsletter reported a month prior to the event that Pride had offered Frank Shamrock $150,000 to take Gracie’s place. The bout would have been removed from the one-night tournament and replaced with another bout, so fans could see Sakuraba and Shamrock at their best, not fighting with concerns about the potential of two additional matches that night.

Without enough time to prepare for the bout, Shamrock turned down the offer. It was a lucky break for Pride, who went back and agreed to Gracie’s terms. Sakuraba and Gracie fought in a legendary 90-minute bout in which the chain-smoking Sakuraba outlasted the prince of Brazilian jiu-jitsu. Later that same night, Sakuraba came back out for the tournament semi-finals and put up a valiant 15-minute effort against top heavyweight Igor Vovchanchyn, but with nothing left to give, his corner threw in the towel before the start of the overtime round.

If that night didn’t immediately make Sakuraba the biggest star in MMA, it jumpstarted him to the point that he became the biggest star in the sport only shortly thereafter.

Meanwhile, Shamrock continued to negotiate with Pride. The promotion targeted Sakuraba vs. Shamrock for Pride 10 in August 2000, but Sakuraba headlined the show against Renzo Gracie instead.

As Japan aimed to pit Shamrock against their new superstar, kickboxing promoter Scott Coker worked to bring the fight to the United States. A Wrestling Observer Newsletter report stated that Strikeforce, Coker’s kickboxing promotion with a time slot on ESPN 2, wanted to promote the fight in San Jose, California, on November 4, 2000.

When that didn’t present itself, Coker didn’t fold. The December 2000 issue of Black Belt indicated that Strikeforce could promote the bout in either Nevada or California in February 2001. The article also included a prediction from Shamrock that he would stop Sakuraba within 12 minutes.

Coker discussed the bout in a 2014 oral history of Strikeforce for Bloody Elbow. “Our first [MMA] show would have been Frank and Sakuraba in 2001,” he explained. “I said to Frank ‘Why don’t we just do that fight here because it’s going to be legal in [California]?’ And he said, ‘Let’s do it.’”

The Unified Rules of Mixed Martial Arts were written in California in 2000, and confidence was high that the sport would soon become regulated in the state. But regulation stalled year after year, keeping Coker from promoting MMA bouts in his San Jose base, and ultimately keeping him from promoting Sakuraba vs. Shamrock. “[T]he only reason it didn’t happen” Coker told Bloody Elbow, “is because the legislation kept getting pushed back and back and back.”

Efforts to make the fight continued, but Sakuraba’s time at the top was limited, as was Shamrock’s activity.

In March 2001, Wanderlei Silva tore through Sakuraba in less than two minutes, signaling a new era in the division. The loss was blamed on lasting affects from Sakuraba’s New Year’s Eve binge drinking. A return match that November was the biggest match Pride had ever had. Sakuraba fared better the second time around, but still fell short. Years of fighting larger opponents and not taking care of his body were beginning to take a toll.

In December 2000, Shamrock took his first fight since leaving the UFC and defeated Elvis Sinosic in a bout that was closer than it should have been. After the fight, Shamrock remained inactive until 2003.

Meanwhile, Sakuraba’s fall continued. A natural fit for today’s welterweight division, Sakuraba fought heavyweight Mirko Cro Cop, Wanderlei Silva for an unnecessary third time, former heavyweight champion Kevin Randleman, and 205-pounder Antonio Rogerio Nogueira. He defeated Randleman in a surprise upset, but by 2003 the typical Sakuraba fight saw him take a beating and lose. There were already calls for his retirement, but he ignored them.

Despite Shamrock falling out of rankings due to inactivity, and Sakuraba suffering the same consequence for biting off more than he could chew, Pride still took aim to bring the two together.

In late 2003, Pride and Shamrock restarted serious talks. For years, Pride had discussed holding an event in Las Vegas and set multiple dates, but would run into delays and push the date back. In 2004, according to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, Pride set a date of March 26 for their United States debut and wanted Sakuraba vs. Shamrock as the marquee attraction. At one point, talks were close enough that Pride announced they had signed Shamrock, although no pen had been put to paper

March 26 came and went, and Pride offered Shamrock a fight on June 20 in Japan, perhaps against Sakuraba (who ended up competing that night against Nino Schembri). Shamrock couldn’t make the date due to prior commitments, and another plan to bring the two together somewhat near their primes was foiled.

By 2004, the sport had changed. Kazushi Sakuraba and Frank Shamrock had changed. Their fate was to achieve greatness almost simultaneously on opposite sides of the ocean and never to meet at their best.

Rather than a fond memory, Sakuraba vs. Shamrock will exist as a fun “what if,” just as they did to those early fans that subscribed to newsletters, posted on message boards, and paid obscene prices for video tapes to follow their work. Since they circled each other for years, it was only fitting that they did the same when they finally met in the ring on Sunday.

Dan Plunkett has covered MMA for 411Mania since 2008. You can reach him by email at [email protected] and follow him on Twitter @Dan_Plunkett.