Why did the Lions Den fall apart?

[PhilMcCavity]

this or

Mewbs!

 

[560ti]

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)

I had a few stints at that gym and it was a strange place. Lots of artifical arrogance from coaches. Not a great deal of structure. BJJ coach was a complete moron.

The fighters that had the best careers where the ones that all left the gym (Sean Spencer, Ryan Benoit, Derek Campos, Jason Sampson). When all of them left (all at the exact same time) it pretty much killed Mezgers desire to teach and he started to focus on his partnership with a Holistic Health Center

 

[Kforcer]

Anyway,Sapp was a freak. Things that should make sense go out the window with a guy like that.

He really did seem to lose his balls after Mirko smashed his eye socket in.

That Fujita beating was awful too. Very intelligent use of wrestling by Fujita, but sort of an awful sight to behold, especially after a certain point.

 

[Kforcer]

I had a few stints at that gym and it was a strange place. Lots of artifical arrogance from coaches. Not a great deal of structure. BJJ coach was a complete moron.

The fighters that had the best careers where the ones that all left the gym (Sean Spencer, Ryan Benoit, Derek Campos, Jason Sampson). When all of them left (all at the exact same time) it pretty much killed Mezgers desire to teach and he started to focus on his partnership with a Holistic Health Center

My friend used to train there. He never fought, but he was a very good grappler. He always sung Buddy Clinton's praises. He said he observed Mezger doing a private lesson during a no-gi class and said his skills were pretty awesome to behold. I guess the private was basically Guy rolling with a guy and he basically just put it on him.

 

[zumbulare]

Great post, thanks guys for sharing all the
info

 

[560ti]

My friend used to train there. He never fought, but he was a very good grappler. He always sung Buddy Clinton's praises. He said he observed Mezger doing a private lesson during a no-gi class and said his skills were pretty awesome to behold. I guess the private was basically Guy rolling with a guy and he basically just put it on him.

Yeah Guy had the knowledge and potential to be a Mike Brown level coach but he spent too much time behind the scenes either running the business or doing other side projects (graduate school for holistic health, being the president of hdnet fights, seminars, running the business aspect of the school).

If someone else ran the gym and he was solely responsible for just showing up and coaching then things would of been alot different.

 

[Coconutwater]

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

I respect Ken, but when dude thinks he’s right, there is no compromise. Great fighter who didn’t have the benefit of modern MMA training. He could of have been an ATG if born in 1993.

 

[GORO]

Watch him coach a season of TUF, you will find out pretty quick.

Lmaoooo prime Ken was a beast that Ken was full injuries everyone know that

 

[GORO]

Ppl forget Tito got rocked by shamrock 1st fight buckled and almost KOd this was when shamrock was way past it and Tito in prime and lot bigger I think shamrock weighed 202 lbs ripped but lot smaller then Tito shamrock used be over 240lb

 

[10000yearsold]

upon the discovery of fire and then the black monolith, apes rose up on their hind legs developed thumbs and started a banking cartel which sent them to outer space. on the remains of the lion's den they built the libraries of Alexandria which would eventually wash away to Atlantis.

 

[RiotWyatt]

I remember Ken mentioning after his Kimo fight that the gym forced him out to train with other gyms. They felt that's what he needed to grow as a fighter. He was upset at them at first but he realized that they were right.

That was in 2004. Frank had already left Lion's Den back in 1997 and formed The Alliance. Even then, he jumped around to AKA and even formed his own school, Shamrock Martial Arts Academy in 2005.

Guy Mezger retired in 2005 and formed his own Lion's Den affiliated gym in Dallas which is now called Mezger Martial Arts.

The Lion's Den also had a team competing in the IFL during the late 2000s but I'm not sure if they had anything to do with the original Lion's Den other than being headed by Ken. Roy Nelson was IFL HW Champ with Lion's Den.

 

[Ralph Wiggum]

Tito Ortiz emasculated then into Bolivian

 

[Patman]

Ken beat all the students to a living death.