Uncaged (35 page)

If you can control those three pieces, you can master anything, and you can control the information better than anyone. This system comes from the martial way, and it's how I approach everything in my life.

It's been especially important for me to find mentors in life. But mostly I didn't pick them. I didn't choose to meet Bob Shamrock. I didn't choose to work with Ken Shamrock. I didn't choose to study with Masakatsu Funaki. Somehow I pulled them into my life and was able to learn from them.

It's also been important for me to be a mentor. Teaching is a big part of learning. Passing on the knowledge is an important part of mastering it. I've learned the hard way what happens when I ignore these ideals and when I don't follow the martial way in some part of my life. When I follow these things, everything good comes to me. When I stop, or I take away the minus or the plus, it all falls apart.

For example, I got involved many years ago with the American Kickboxing Academy. I originally worked with two partners. One was Bob Cook, a student. He was my best student. He was so devoted. He was working as a tree faller. He'd work eight hours a day, then drive three hours to train with me—then train for two hours and drive three hours home. I called him Crazy Bob Cook. My other partner was Javier Mendez, an amazing kickboxing champion who started teaching and training me and later became my business partner. Together we became the first really well-rounded MMA school in the country, and we started Team AKA, one of the most successful fight teams in the country.

Javier was my mentor, my plus. Bob was my student, my minus. I was learning from Javier and I was teaching Bob. But I forgot my own system. I had retired from fighting and moved to Los Angeles. I stopped communicating with my partners. I stopped connecting with them and telling them things and asking them things. So I had removed my plus and my minus. And I kept taking meetings and creating media. I assumed out of ego and trust that my partners wouldn't doubt or question anything I said or did. But Javier came and told me they weren't comfortable with the way things were going. He said that he needed to be above me in our business, whatever that meant. I freaked out and clammed up. A couple of phone calls would have made the difference, I think, and would have repaired the damage. But I didn't make the phone calls. The American Kickboxing Academy became the biggest fight school in
the United States. They have trained dozens of champions. The team is still run by Javier and Bob, and I don't have anything to do with it.

What happened? I asked Maurice Smith, my trainer and partner, what had gone wrong. He said, “You messed it up.” He was right. I didn't see that until it was over, and it was too late, but I had a valuable asset and I lost it because I forgot my own system.

I have tried never to make that mistake again. I try to remember to use it in all my relationships, even in my marriage. I think it makes me a grounded, honest, communicative person, which makes it possible for me to be a good partner to my wife, and a good husband. Because I am loving, and communicative, it's easy for her to tell me what she needs from me, and it makes it easy for me to give it to her. When I have difficulties in my relationship, I go to my mentor, to my plus, or to one of my equals. I ask them to help me. I ask them to give me their opinion and their experience. I don't try to figure it out on my own.

When I have an issue with someone who's more like my minus, I just try to share what I know. Years ago I trained a guy I called Shoulders. He was sort of a genetic freak. He had these massive arms and shoulders—beyond anything I'd ever seen. It was natural; he wasn't training or lifting to get that way. He was just built huge. He was a country boy from Canada who played a lot of hockey and got interested in MMA. He joined my gym and got really involved. He practically lived in the gym. He trained
hard.
He would train until he dropped. But he couldn't fight. He had some sort of mental block that was stopping him. So he just trained and trained and trained until he was all broken down.

After many months of this, he finally wore himself out. He was really down and really struggling. His knees were wrecked. So I asked him to help me coach. I was going on the road for some International Fight League event and I asked him to come along. We
were sitting at dinner, having a few drinks, and I asked him to tell me what was going on. Finally he told me. He said that his father and mother had forced him to live in a shed his whole life, and have sex with them both. They kept him in this shed, worked him like a mule, and made him have sex.

I couldn't believe anyone could live like that, or that anyone would be able to talk about it. But he laid it all out. I thought
my
journey had been tough. But this was beyond anything I'd ever heard. It was hard for him to tell the story, but he told it. When he was done, he said, “Mr. Shamrock, that's my problem. I don't know how to function. I can't fight. My mother and father took my manhood away from me.” I told him, “I don't know what to say about that, but here is what happened to me.” I told him
my
story. I told him what had happened in my life and how I'd gotten past it. And I said, “Your mom and dad didn't take
anything
from you. No one can take away your manhood. You
are
a man. That's what we're doing here. That's what MMA is all about. We're becoming men.” Soon after that he went back home to Canada and had his knee fixed. He got married, and today he has a fight team of his own.

I have had an amazing life. I have had an amazing career. In the beginning I was scared all the time. I didn't know what I was doing. I got by on athleticism and desire. I never doubted myself. I got nervous because I
wasn't
nervous. That stressed me out. But living through the stress, fighting when I was scared, fighting when I
wasn't
scared, has made me a survivor. I could never have become the man I am today without going through the things that happened to me. I could never have become the man I am, or the man I am trying to be, without fighting.

Fighting has been my way of life. Fighting has been my discipline. Fighting is art. When it's done right, it's beautiful. There is nothing more beautiful than the painted canvas of just totally kicking someone's ass.

I have fought some huge fights. I have fought some fights no one thought I could win. I won them because I brought everything I had to the fight. I didn't leave anything at home. When I fought, I was fighting all the way. I was absolutely willing to die if that's what it was going to take to win. It's hard to fight a man who's willing to die. It took me my whole fighting career, and everything that happened in my life before that, to make me into that guy. It took a lifetime of abuse, neglect, mistreatment, violence, and incarceration before I learned to fight back, to respect myself, and to take care of myself. It took another lifetime to learn the principles of honor, respect, and discipline.

In some ways, the hardest part of that is the discipline. It's the part that's easiest to skip. Training is harder than fighting. Fighting is easy! It's exciting and you get the adrenaline high. Nothing hurts when you're fighting. You don't feel stuff. You might do some damage to yourself, but only one piece of your brain registers it—not as pain but as information. It's as if one part of your brain knows something is going to hurt later. It doesn't actually feel the pain at the time.

That's not true with training. Training can hurt. Training, a lot of the time, is just uncomfortable. But discipline is all about doing the thing that's uncomfortable. It's about doing the things you don't want to do. We're all programmed the other way. We spend all our lives trying to
avoid
discomfort. Discipline is all about learning the opposite lesson. In the fight life, this can be really extreme. The fight life is so isolating, and so lonely. When you're really in it, all you do is train. If you want to be the best, you get rid of all the other things. Parties and birthdays and personal relationships are no longer important. Training is everything. Creating and maintaining your physical machine is everything. This is historically part of the martial way. The old samurai did nothing but train and figure out ways to kill people better. They didn't even take wives. It was
too much of a distraction from their training. That takes amazing discipline. To be successful in any area—in business, in sports, in a relationship, in any endeavor—you have to understand that it's OK to be uncomfortable. It's OK to be in pain. Discipline is about knowing that you have to suck it up and humble yourself and do the right thing, which is usually the hard thing. That might be the hardest lesson of all—to do the hard thing when it's the right thing.

But that's how I live my life today. The first thing I think of, when I wake up in the morning, is how can I be better? How can I be a better person, a better father, a better husband, a better man in my community? That all has its roots in fighting and the principles of honor, respect, and discipline. I used to spend hours studying how I could throw a better left hook. Now it starts with the world around me. How can I be a better person? How can I be better at taking care of myself, my family, and my community?

I'm not sure what's next. I'm not sure where I'm going, or where the world around me is going. But right here, right now, it's all come full circle. My daughter Nicolette just took her very first martial arts class. And I just started training again—in a friend's garage, just like in the beginning. I'm going to start teaching again, too. Just like in the beginning.

My world looks fantastic to me. I'm excited about it. The last few months don't look like the end of something, or the beginning of something. It just looks like what
is.
I'm excited about it. I'm nervous about it. But I'm that way about everything. I'm
always
excited and nervous. I have everything I've ever wanted. I've done everything I ever wanted to do. I accomplished what I set out to do. I've been the best fighter in the world. I set two world records. I did things no one else had ever done. But the timing could have been better; I did it all in a sport that no one was watching at the time. Now MMA is the biggest sport in the world. But when I was doing it, our sport was viewed by its smallest audience ever when it was
kicked off cable. I still believe MMA is the next level of entertainment in martial arts and combat sports. It's only going to get bigger. Whether I have a hand in that, I don't know.

But I know that my journey as a martial artist will continue, and my experience as a fighter and a martial artist has prepared me for anything that lies ahead. I'm looking forward to whatever is next. I have no fear. I am a warrior.

Many people, knowingly and unknowingly, have made this book possible, and I acknowledge their contributions with deepest appreciation and gratitude.

First and foremost, I would like to thank my wife, Amy, daughter, Nicolette, and son, Frankie, for giving up so many evenings and dinners while these words were hammered out.

My deepest gratitude to Henry Holmes, mentor, super lawyer, and newly adopted father, for seeing a future that I could only dream of and for having the desire and experience to help achieve it.

I am eternally grateful to Charles Fleming. Thank you for your faith in my story and your willingness to walk into the cage with me. Without your brotherhood, patience, diligence, and writing skills, this book would have never been completed.

A special thank you to my editor, Yuval Taylor at Chicago Review Press, for the endless help with editing and shaping these words for human consumption.

I would like to express my greatest gratitude to my adoptive father, Bob Shamrock, for taking me into his group home and teaching me a love for athletics and a respect for myself.

To my partner, Scott Coker, thank you for being my fight promoter in the martial arts, for being honest, and for trusting my vision of MMA.

Thank you to Ken Shamrock, my adopted brother and first teacher of martial arts, without whom I would never have had the courage to fight.

With the utmost gratitude, I pay respect to my trainer, Maurice Smith, for treating me like a brother when no one else would and for showing me unconditional love.

I would also like to thank Lorenzo Fertitta, Bob Meyrowitz, Kelly Kahl, Javier Mendez, Mickey Rourke, Chuck Norris, Al Sehorn, Ernie Reyes, my doctor team—Dr. Carlon Colker, Dr. Mike and Matt Janzen, Dr. David Vik, Dr. Miles Guyton—and Mrs. Tucker, my third-grade teacher, who sent me books and homework while I was in juvenile hall. I would also like to thank my students in martial arts, who taught me so much about life, and all the fighters I have trained who taught me so much about people.

Finally, I would like to thank the fans who have walked alongside me on this journey. Your letters of support and encouragement have always been the secret source of inspiration and energy that have kept me going.

Abbott, Tank,
113
,
148–149

adoption,
75

alcohol

addiction to,
237–244

after Christy left,
38

B. Shamrock and,
30–31

childhood and,
9
,
13
,
14
,
33

in Japan,
79

Altman, Mike,
185

American Kickboxing Academy,
97
,
141
,
172
,
249–250

Anderson, Gerry,
133

Angel (girlfriend),
85

Arlovski, Andrei,
105

Avenal State Prison,
54

Bacon, Butch,
145–146

BAR O Boys Ranch,
35–36

Baroni, Phil,
161
,
170
,
171–175
,
177–181
,
183
,
184