Issue 072
February 2011
He shoots, he scores. To some he’s a stifling grappler, to others a wrestling virtuoso with poetic skills. One thing that’s certain: Jake Shields could soon be giving Georges St-Pierre the fight of his life.
The excitement running through UFC welterweight contender Jake Shields’ brain becomes more and more obvious with every word that escapes from his mouth. Oddly, the prospect of a title bout with Georges St Pierre isn’t what’s tempting the 31-year-old grappling genius out of his usually die-cast shell. In just a few short hours Shields will get on a plane headed to Thailand. For most mixed martial artists a trip there usually means a few weeks spent in the crucible that is a traditional Thai boxing gym. Shields, who holds wins over Yushin Okami, Carlos Condit and Hayato ‘Mach’ Sakurai to name just a few, does plan on clocking up hours with the renowned trainers of Tiger Muay Thai on Phuket. But heavy bags and focus mitts are clearly fighting for attention with the rock climbing he plans on sneaking in. Flying halfway across the world to train with Lumpinee Stadium champions and climb some of the world’s most majestic rock formations isn’t the kind of vacation MMA fans would expect from Shields. Given his history of technically superlative but aesthetically subtle ground-based bouts, the lay fan might imagine that a week spent watching how-to videos on cement mixing seems like the more appropriate getaway for the former Strikeforce middleweight champion. But hidden underneath the All-American looks and laid-back SoCal persona, however, is a stack of clashing influences and free-thinking perspectives befitting a childhood that was equal parts X-Games and backwoods hippie.
“I grew up way out in the boonies [a remote area] in California,” Shields says of his childhood. “We lived by a dirt road, up in the Sierra Nevada mountains, about an hour away from… anything, really. My parents home-schooled me for the most part; we were just this kind of alternative family.” Shields is noted for his vegetarianism, hardly unusual in athletes generally but certainly esoteric among wrestlers. “[That background] was great, because it gave me a lot of freedom. Being out in nature and doing adventure sports with my brothers: caving, mountain biking, and snowboarding… The thrill of it – it’s hard to explain, but I never get tired of it.”
The blast of fraternal competition quickly became an IV drip that sustained Shields, and it wasn’t long before California’s rich wrestling tradition sucked in the daring youngster. “Starting in middle school I got into wrestling, mostly because one of my older brothers was doing well with it. The one-on-one competitiveness of wrestling really got me,” Shields says as his voice starts going at a machine-gun pace. “Just being on the mat, knowing that it’s all on you is such a rush. And before I knew it I had wrestled all the way through middle school, high school, college… all of it.” After finishing a successful two-year run at Cuesta Community College, in the late ‘90s Shields started training on a whim at the SLO Kickboxing Academy in San Luis Obispo, California. However, finding a new outlet for his skills by being around the likes of then-UFC-contender Chuck Liddell turned a diversion into a passion. But it was a development that came at a time when $200 checks for a professional MMA fight were considered a good payday, and the Wild West mentality that had dragged the sport to the brink of irrelevance pervaded.
“Probably the craziest thing I ever saw was some guy fight a big, fat woman in this real shady show. At first, everyone was having a good laugh about it. Then this guy is wailing on a woman and we all kind of realized, ‘What the hell are we doing?’” says Shields, summing up the absurd and outright dangerous nature of MMA in the late ‘90s. “Thankfully things have gotten better, but back in the day that’s just how it was: crazy.”
Shields’ life indeed became manic. He continued to train MMA while attending San Francisco State University on a wrestling scholarship and caring for his newborn daughter Madison. The sudden rush of adult responsibilities left Shields’ life in disarray and the carefree spirit of his youth was now a liability. Grown-up decisions don’t usually work out well for people like Shields. He’s a die-hard punk rock fan who keeps Rancid and The Sex Pistols in his regular rotation and freely admits to getting into his fair share of ill-advised street fights with tipsy college-frat boys. If it was up to him, he’d much rather be rolling on the mats (or climbing up a rock face) than dealing with mortgage payments and the crush of adulthood that claims teenage free spirits. But instead of giving in to the convention he’d avoided all his life, Shields double-downed on MMA under the guidance of Cesar Gracie. The association came about not out of any intense desire to train under a member of the vaunted Gracie clan, but rather geographic convenience. Cesar Gracie just so happened to have an academy within a stone’s throw of Shields.
It was a life-changing instance of serendipity. Shields moved up the ranks under Gracie’s watchful eye along with fellow future champions Gilbert Melendez and Nick Diaz. The trio of up-and-comers soon grew into a quartet as Nick brought in his younger brother Nate and thus was born arguably the most tightly knit band of fighters the sport has ever seen. “Me, Nick, Gil, and Nate, we’re all brothers,” Shields says of the shared mentality Cesar Gracie fosters. “We’ve pushed each other every step of the way, and that’s what you need to get better. Everyone understands that’s what’s important… that’s the only thing that matters in the gym.” Keeping this relentless focus on MMA carried a heavy price. Shields’ friends and family tried to steer him away from a career in the sport. Living in San Francisco, one of North America’s most expensive cities, forced him to take fights everywhere from Japan to Costa Rica in search of his next paycheck. A reality made even more frustrating by the fact that his glossy record was ignored in favor of harping over his conservative, top control-centric style.
“People just don’t understand how hard this sport is. They think if you fight tough guys you should be able to magically run them over like it’s nothing,” Shields says of the criticisms he’s heard virtually his entire career. “I won’t lie, I don’t really care what people have to say about me. As long as I know I’m training hard and getting better, all the criticisms and crap out there doesn’t mean anything to me.” A ‘boring’ tag, justified or not, can be debilitating for a fighter’s finances and Shields spent nearly eight years in the MMA equivalent of purgatory. It wasn’t until EliteXC came on the scene that he started earning a decent living as a mixed martial artist. However, gaining a measure of financial comfort had the exact opposite effect of what one would expect on a so-called ‘lay-and-pray fighter’.
While it is certainly true that Shields racked up his fair share of wins via top control early in his career, he has since evolved into one of the most complete grapplers this sport has ever seen. Unlike the vast majority of Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belts in MMA, Shields comes from a wrestling background first and foremost, cultivating a takedown game that most grapplers can only dream of. However, there’s much more to Shields’ style than just a basic ‘one plus one’ combination of wrestling and BJJ. Dubbed ‘American jiu-jitsu’ by Shields himself, the style is a synthesis of the relentless, grinding mentality that all wrestlers strive for and the fluidity of technique that is prized in the Brazilian jiu-jitsu community. The end result is a fighter who can snatch hold of a submission in a bout’s opening minute as easily as he dominates position from bell to bell.
Shields rattled off four straight stoppage wins before EliteXC crumbled under the weight of its own expenditures. However, it wasn’t long before Strikeforce secured his services and he was back to his winning ways. Unfortunately, his convincing run for the California-based promotion was marred by an in-cage brawl that took place at the Strikeforce: Nashville event immediately following the most important fight of his career – a daring comeback win over former Pride FC middleweight (205lb) and welterweight (183lb) champion Dan Henderson. The ruckus was ignited by the always boisterous Jason ‘Mayhem’ Miller, who’d lost to Shields just five months earlier in a decider for the vacant Strikeforce middleweight championship. Miller abruptly entered the cage during Shields’ post-fight interview, demanding; “Where’s my rematch, buddy?” A tense situation turned into a chaotic one as the Cesar Gracie team descended on Miller like a battalion before a national television audience on CBS. “Y’know, the whole situation definitely didn’t turn out the way anyone wanted it to. I had just gotten a big win, the whole team was pumped up, and here comes this clown [Jason Miller] who I had already beaten,” Shields says as his voice loses any shred of California cool. “He [Miller] shouldn’t have been in the cage and he got in my face in front of my teammates. What did he think was going to happen? My teammates have my back and they weren’t going to stand by and let me get disrespected like that.” Even with the benefit of hindsight, Shields won’t take the blame for the events of that disastrous April 17th evening. “Do I regret it? Sure, but that doesn’t make it my fault. To be completely honest about it, if the same situation were to happen nothing would go down any differently,” Shields says before going after his would-be nemesis one more time. “[Jason] Miller is just an ignorant guy who thinks he can do whatever he wants, I really don’t think of him much. The way I look at it is I beat him and that’s all that matters.”
For a fighter who’s been on the receiving end of many a ‘lay-and-pray’ sideswipe, Shields kept popping up in headlines as a rumored UFC deal spread like wildfire. The innuendo hit critical mass when Shields appeared on the WEC 48 pay-per-view seated next to UFC president Dana White, who draped an arm around Shields and proclaimed “He’s mine!” with a Cheshire-cat grin aimed squarely at Strikeforce. The writing was on the wall, and two months later Shields was released from the organization during his contractual renegotiation period. But the ugliness didn’t end there as Strikeforce went on the offensive against their former middleweight champion. During the Strikeforce: Houston event there were references made to Shields’ declining a fight against Ronaldo ‘Jacare’ Souza, and Strikeforce CEO Scott Coker recently claimed that Shields’ management turned the bout down twice. His departure from the organization was characterized purely as a release, in a seeming attempt to obfuscate the fact that he had signed with the UFC. “It was disappointing for sure,” Shields says of Strikeforce’s initial reaction to his departure. “I fulfilled my contract and put on some great fights for them. It’s not like I owed them anything. What really bothered me was what they said about me not wanting to fight Jacare. Instead of fighting him I fought Dan Henderson who is a way bigger name and a legend in the sport. Why would I take less money to fight someone who isn’t any better or a bigger name?”
While Shields is clearly bothered by his work for Strikeforce being so easily dismissed, he’s quick to point out that the situation has been resolved and his focus is squarely on the UFC welterweight title. While Dana White has repeatedly made it clear that Shields is next in line for a shot at the belt, fan reaction hasn’t been as fervent as it might thanks to Shields’ uneventful win over Martin Kampmann at UFC 121. “Man, that fight was rough on me. I hadn’t cut down to 170 in two years and that particular cut just didn’t go well,” Shields says in an almost regretful tone that makes it clear he desperately wanted his UFC debut to be a resounding one. “I know what I did wrong though, and it’s not going to happen again. If I do get the winner between Georges St Pierre and Josh Koscheck, they’re going to have to get through the best version of me.” The hard-nosed mentality every wrestler needs to succeed has clearly become a pillar of Shields’ personality. Every failure is cast as the precursor to a greater victory, every criticism is a fresh barrel of petroleum poured on the competitive fire and, through it all, Shields remains the same kid that used to spend his days chasing the next thrill. Right now, that next thrill is holding the UFC welterweight title.
