Jun 22 2007
Strikeforce: Judgment Day Live Report
The main take away I received after watching my first live MMA show is that San Jose, CA loves their MMA.
And San Jose, CA is the place where Frank Shamrock calls home. The former Pancrease/UFC veteran, who at 34 years old is not a spring chicken by any means in today’s MMA scene, backed up his words and dismantled a very game Phil Baroni in the main event of the show.
Shamrock is a great marketer and in this case, he had use all his marketing savvy because the San Jose based Strikeforce promotion doesn’t have any television to promote their events. The Judgment Day show was a combined event with Strikeforce and EliteXC, which is co-owned by Showtime, enabling it to be on Pay-Per-View. Shamrock chose to fight Baroni with the intention that Phil could talk and they could create quite the buzz for the event. Phil did his part as both men threw a barrage of threats and taunts at each other, drawing nearly 10,000 fans for the fight.
With much pomp and circumstance, Shamrock and Baroni could’ve failed inside the cage and the show would’ve still been good, but that wasn’t the case. They had a fantastic fight. Baroni entered the cage dressed like Ric Flair in a sequined robe, except Baroni’s didn’t have any sleeves, allowing his ripped arms to be seen. And he didn’t just walk down the aisle. He came out with sunglasses and danced down to the cage and while this was Frank Shamrock’s house, no one could boo a man with that kind of ring entrance. Ring announcer Jimmy Lennon Jr. called Frank Shamrock, “The Legendâ€. And the legend arrived in a San Jose Sharks jersey to the sounds of the late Notorious BIG’s Hypnotize. The already loud crowd went crazy and was much louder than any other loud crowd I’ve ever heard in the building. I’ve watched basketball and hockey games at the “Shark Tank†and even watched Stone Cold Steve Austin and The Rock in the late 90’s when wrestling was at its peak, and nothing touched Frank Shamrock’s entrance from a crowd perspective.
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