Cung Le beats Frank Shamrock!
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I admit that I missed this fight. Catty doesn’t have cable, so she probably missed it too. You can read the story here.
Anyway, Cung Le beat the virtually unstoppable Frank Shamrock by TKO when he broke Shamrock’s arm with strikes. Shamrock was unable to continue after the third round. I was in New York when two Russian guys named Igor Zinoviev and Victor Tatarkin started cleaning up the New York judo scene in the late 90’s. Igor moved on to fight in the Extreme Fighting Championship and won the middleweight title by beating Mario Sperry, a Brazilian Champion with a long win record. When Frank beat Igor the UFC with a bodyslam that ended his career, I personally knew that Frank was the real deal. As I predicted at the time, Frank went on to dominate the UFC, including his famous knockout win over an exhausted Tito Ortiz.
Cung Le has had a shorter MMA career–he was mostly involved in kickboxing and Wu Shu in his younger years–but he’s no less amazing. It’s always amazing to see a skilled striker take out a seasoned MMA veteran, especially when it comes from strikes. I do remember seeing one of his earlier fights when he first made the MMA transition. He was a bit hesitant to fight on the ground, but he did an amazing job at ensuring that the fight was a striking match. As with most of his fights, his opponent eventually gave up trying to take him down, and the result was a knockout in Le’s favor.
Anyway, outside of B.J. Penn and Denis Kang, I think he’s one of the few Asian American MMA competitors, and now he joins B.J. Penn as a world champion.
Frank Shamrock also deserves props for being extremely gracious in defeat:
“Cung Le broke my right arm,” Shamrock said. “I could feel the bones clicking together. Anyone who says Cung Le doesn’t know submissions … he put one on my arm.”
(Picture from http://fightstalker.com/?s=strikeforce)
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lopan
3:35 pm | Mar 31, 2008What the fuck?!? CUNG LE CUNG LE CUNG LE!!!
I really have to see this fight now. The biggest criticsm against Cung Le was his lack of ground skills, and since his first fight with Tony Fryklund never went to the ground, people were hesitant to say whether Cung was legitimate. I’m a huge sanshou guy, and I’ve been waiting for Cung to move forward with his UFC fights and introduce the sanshou style to millions of Muaythai/BJJ fanatics. His win over Shamrock is a big deal.
lopan
4:13 pm | Mar 31, 2008I just watched the fight. Wow! Cung Le was phenomenal, and that leg sweep in the 3rd round was the Le trademark that everyone wanted to see.
However I am disappointed that Frank didn’t take Le to the ground. It was stupid of him to have said that he was going to beat Le standing up, because, as we saw, when he started to lose he couldn’t fall back to his ground game without losing face. Cung also knew that he couldn’t take Shamrock on the ground… so as it stands, despite the crazy win, we don’t know how Cung Le would do against someone who has no qualms about taking Le out of his striking comfort zone.
CJF
8:24 pm | Mar 31, 2008Great fight. Shammrock couldn’t take him down if he tried.
Cung was an all american JC wrestler, and placed first in state.
Cattygurl
8:49 pm | Mar 31, 2008Goddamn, I missed this fight. *cries* CUNG LE kicked ass, so I’m gonna def have to watch this one.
lopan
10:35 pm | Mar 31, 2008You can still catch it on DailyMotion. Do a quick search and watch before they take it down!
jaehwan
10:49 pm | Mar 31, 2008Whoa, that was one helluva fight! Round 3 was freaking awesome. The leg sweep was sweet–it was like he dumped him on his butt and then just walked away. That took the smile right off Frank’s face! All the love for Frank though. He fought an awesome fight too. He actually started a late round rally in Round 3 and made the fight exciting.
Maybe Pat or Catty can say something about this, but I’ve heard that the most exhausting technique in MMA is the takedown. In wrestling, it isn’t so bad because both guys are trying to score a takedown at the same time, and you don’t have to worry about getting clocked in the face with a fist or knee. In streetfighting, it’s not so bad because the length of fights tends to be short, and I don’t know if people actually do takedowns in real fights. But in MMA, I’ve heard takedowns are brutally tiring, especially if you’re taking punches while you work it.
So maybe that’s why Frank didn’t want to take him down? I remember the Tito fight, and Frank fought until Tito was too tired and then started pounding him. Maybe Frank was hoping to do the same with Cung. Didn’t work this time though.
So I have to agree with you, Lopes. I kind of wish there had been some ground work. It’s always exciting to see a guy who is somewhat comfortable in all zones. Frykland tried to take Cung down during their fight, and he finally got frustrated and just gave up. Maybe Frank was feeling a little of the same? (though it didn’t look like he was trying to get the takedown…)
CJF
11:23 pm | Mar 31, 2008There’s a huge risk going for a takedown against Cung. Nobody in MMA has as precise kicking abilit as Cung, so shooting in poses risk for a side kick or round house kick to the face.
kimtae
12:13 am | Apr 01, 2008Sanshou is great, and there is no doubt Cung Le is one of the best of all time at it, but it was Cung Le’s Tae Kwon Do that won that fight. His side-kicks were brutal.
Frank has an unoperated torn ACL. It’s suspected that he may not be able to shoot for a low takedown which is why he hasn’t tried in his last few fights. This leaves him with the couple of weak top grapples he went for and nobody’s taking Le down like that.
The fight that needs to be made is Cung Le vs Anderson Silva, Dan Henderson, or Cho Sung-hoon. It’s time for him to step up to the big leagues.
nskripchun
8:30 am | Apr 01, 2008Just watched the fight.
Cung Le has some crazy punch-kick / kick-punch / kick-kick combos.
lopan
12:25 pm | Apr 02, 2008CJF:
It seems that way. I just watched the Fryklund fight again because i’d heard he’d tried to go for the takedown but Cung stopped him each time. To me, it seems like guys are just petrified of Le’s sidekicks. There were a few opportunities where Le’s sidekicks missed on Fryklund, but Fryklund just froze; he had an ample chance to drive in for a takedown, but Fryklund had total deer-in-headlights syndrome.
Kudos to Cung for his Shamrock fight, and props to Shamrock for standing up for (most) of the way against Le. But overral i’m disappointed. I was talking with my training brother, and we both agreed that this fight between Shamrock and Le showcases the lack of knock-out power that Cung possesses. Shamrock’s a tough guy and all, but it took Cung 3 rounds to beat a man who was willing to only strike him wearing 4 ounce gloves and no headgear. Le hit him many times squarely, but Frank just shook it off. Even the commentators were noting that had it been a different fighter, those hits would have been knock out.
Also, the fact that Shamrock and Le were once training brothers makes the outcome a bit dubious; not to say that Frank didn’t fight with all he had, but he definitely gave Le a LOT of leeway. Frank only began to take the fight seriously in the 3rd round, i believe. Did it seem like he was fighting to defend his title? No.