The SBP Archives - Your less than frequent dose of SBP!

Back in the early-to-mid 1990s, martial arts was a big part of my life. There was a time when I spent four days a week attending classes for Tae Kwon Do and Goshindo (a hybrid Martial Art that combined techniques from different fighting styles). When the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) was introduced, the concept of determining the "best" martial art definitely appealed to me. Of course, it asked more questions than answered, and after about 4 or 5 of these events I stopped watching, simply because it was boring: A lot of rolling around on the mat without much action. But one of the initial stars of the show was Ken Shamrock, "The World's Most Dangerous Man". He won many bouts and is now a UFC Hall of Famer. But, a good ol' fashioned rivalry developed a few years ago.

One of the newer stars of UFC, Tito Ortiz, dispatched a couple of Shamrock's students. One of them was named Guy Mezger. The next fight after the win, Ortiz wore a t-shirt that said "Gay Mezger is my bitch." (Mezger had actually beaten Ortiz in a previous fight but Ortiz won the second). Shamrock was not too pleased with that complete lack of disrespect and a war of words between the two took place.

Ortiz then fought Ken's younger brother, Frank Shamrock, for the light heavyweight championship which was cited as one of the best UFC bouts ever, going nearly a full four rounds (championship bouts last five rounds; regular bouts three) before Ortiz got the victory. And wouldn't you know it, he had a special Frank t-shirt made after he was announced as the winner, and that was the final straw for Ken Shamrock.

They had their first bout in late 2002, with Ortiz winning because Shamrock's corner threw in the towel after the third round, feeling he was taking too much punishment.

A second bout fought just a few months ago last less than two minutes when the referee stopped the match because Shamrock wasn't defending himself enough against Ortiz' punches. Shamrock was NOT happy about this, and felt he could continue.

So tonight on Spike TV with no pay-per-view charges, they are going to go at it one last time. It makes for such a cheesy premise for a movie: The arrogant, disrespectful young "punk" going against the old-school legend to settle the score. Shamrock is 42 years old; Ortiz is 31. Ortiz' girlfriend is porn star Jenna Jameson; Shamrock doesn't bother with such shenanigans and is more the traditionalist. Ken isn't favoured to win simply because he's no longer at his prime, but he has a lot of pride and wants to teach his younger opponent a thing or two about respect.

These guys genuinely have a hatred for each other. It's not like meaningless verbal jabs like Mike Tyson vowing, "I will eat his children". They hate each other to the core. And that makes for great TV. For the first time in a long time, I'll be tuning into UFC.

Follow-up: The fight lasted less than two minutes and ended pretty much the way it did before, except this time Shamrock knew he was beaten. Ortiz originally refused to accept Shamrock's handshake once the fight finished, but after a few moments, changed his mind and they both took turns raising each other's arms to the crowd. There's drama for ya.