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Why did the Lions Den fall apart?

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Ken Shamrock had some killers coming out of there for a second idk why he isn’t still training fighters, with how rigorous his training was I think he’d still be producing top talent.
 
Superlative said:
Ken Shamrock had some killers coming out of there for a second idk why he isn’t still training fighters, with how rigorous his training was I think he’d still be producing top talent.
Click to expand...
He left Frank to run it, Frank took off, he wanted to focus on being the best fighter he could be rather than the Lion's Den head trainer. Guy Mezger moved to Dallas to set up shop and he was basically the heart of the Lion's Den.
 
To much pride.


Ken also plays with butt plugs.

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Superlative said:
Ken Shamrock had some killers coming out of there for a second idk why he isn’t still training fighters, with how rigorous his training was I think he’d still be producing top talent.
Click to expand...

Retro thread...

But actually they didn't 'fall apart' at all.
They were the first successful MMA team outside of the Gracie's, and were at the top of the food chain for a good length of time, peaking when Mo Smith beat and then Pete Williams KO'd Mark Coleman.

Ken went to WWF to make money, and he saved MMA by coming back a few years later and bringing tons of WWF fans and attention to a struggling sport.

Like all teams, they had their time and the sport just got big enough that they gradually lost their top spot, plus after Frank left they had lost one of their best trainers.
 
TheMaster said:
Retro thread...

But actually they didn't 'fall apart' at all.
They were the first successful MMA team outside of the Gracie's, and were at the top of the food chain for a good length of time, peaking when Mo Smith beat and then Pete Williams KO'd Mark Coleman.

Ken went to WWF to make money, and he saved MMA by coming back a few years later and bringing tons of WWF fans and attention to a struggling sport.

Like all teams, they had their time and the sport just got big enough that they gradually lost their top spot, plus after Frank left they had lost one of their best trainers.
Click to expand...

I think it is fair to say they fell apart. Like I said, Guy Mezger going to Dallas was probably the death knell, even if he called his gym Lion's Den Dallas. I've know a couple students of Mezger's--one of them is actually a close friend--and one of his students related to me that Mezger referred to Funaki's lessons constantly but almost never to Ken's. That could just be a credit to Funaki as a teacher, but it also suggests to me that he was distancing himself from Ken on some level. Although, that's just speculation. But certainly, I think after Frank leaving, Guy packing up for Dallas was basically the end of the entity that was the San Diego Lion's Den.
 
Lion's Den Dallas had a good crop of fighters going at one point; Alex Andrade (Bellator, Art of War) Takuhiro Kamikozono (one of the many to submit Ali Abdel Azziz) Chris Bowles, Takashi, Cody Walker
in class you would see guys like Buddy Clinton (Royce Gracie Black Belt) a young Roger Huerta etc...

I would pop in here and there over the years, and thats just the way it was. Guy always seemed a bit unsure of how he wanted to run his gym. At one point it was all Combat Wrestling as he learned from Ken, but then Audrey Drew who basically ran the gym, became girlfriend to Kaiser Girao and they became a BJJ school. They later broke up but kept the Checkmat affiliation

Currently you have a couple of fighters Evers Anderson, Sierra Seifert fighting on the local shows (XKO,Legacy)
 
No Name Needed said:
Ken is an absolute sociopath of a coach. He's fucking insane with coaching people, and admits as much in his recent book, and it's just something he shouldn't be doing
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Is that book good? I’ve heard it wasn’t put together very well but I’ve also read that it was one of the best combat sports books of all time
 
TheMaster said:
Retro thread...

But actually they didn't 'fall apart' at all.
They were the first successful MMA team outside of the Gracie's, and were at the top of the food chain for a good length of time, peaking when Mo Smith beat and then Pete Williams KO'd Mark Coleman.

Ken went to WWF to make money, and he saved MMA by coming back a few years later and bringing tons of WWF fans and attention to a struggling sport.

Like all teams, they had their time and the sport just got big enough that they gradually lost their top spot, plus after Frank left they had lost one of their best trainers.
Click to expand...

interesting take on Ken saving mma. I think more people were watching to see Tito lose than Ken win. Tito is the one who drew the ppv buys with his antics while Ken played the straight man.
 
Pierced7681 said:
interesting take on Ken saving mma. I think more people were watching to see Tito lose than Ken win. Tito is the one who drew the ppv buys with his antics while Ken played the straight man.
Click to expand...
I think there is a lot of truth to TheMaster's post. Ken Shamrock was a huge name at the time and he brought awareness and attention to the UFC. Remember, that was their top-selling PPV to date. And Ken Shamrock was a main-event wrestler during arguably the most popular wrestling era of all-time so he was definitely not only helping with PPV buys, but with overall attention and notice as well.

At the same time, to say MMA was in a state where it had to be saved while it was selling out arenas in Japan and drawing the attention of essentially an entire nation on NYE seems a bit questionable.
 
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