Lion's Den (mixed martial arts)

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The Lion's Den is a mixed martial arts team and training facility based out of Susanville, California. The team was founded in the early 1990s by UFC Hall of Famer Ken Shamrock, and featured such fighters as Mikey Burnett, Vernon White, Jerry Bohlander, Tra Telligman, Pete Williams and Guy Mezger. The Lion's Den is also now a clothing line run by Ken Shamrock.

Contents

[edit] Overview

The team was founded out of necessity, as the then-new sport of mixed martial arts began to take off in the early 1990s, Shamrock, who had fought at UFC 1, had trouble finding adequate sparring partners to prepare for fights. Shamrock attracted the attention of American Pancrase fighters Vernon White and Guy Mezger early on, and formed the first ever mixed martial arts team.

[edit] Tryouts

The Lion's Den is known for its brutal try-outs because once accepted into the Den the members would live in Ken's home having their dinner provided by Shamrock. Ken needed to make sure only the best got through. The try out consisted of the following:
500 squats
250 push ups
250 sit ups
50 yard run carrying a man of near equal weight on their back
Repeated runs up and down bleacher steps
Bear-crawls up steep hills, lugging heavy barrels of water and sand bags up steep hills


The candidates who were still left at this point would then go on to do as many pull-ups as they can without stopping. From there, the candidates went to the actual Lion's Den facility for several hours of sparring. Shamrock wanted guys that could get through this ordeal without quitting, even after their body has failed on them. It was at this point, when the candidate was still trying even long after their muscles had failed, that Shamrock knew he had a Lion's Den member on his hands.

Although not initially trained by Shamrock, the Den took in and taught additional skills to Oleg Taktarov and Maurice Smith, amongst others.

[edit] Feuds

Shamrock, Bohlander, and Mezger have all engaged in MMA feuds with Tito Ortiz. Ortiz emerged victorious through his competition with the Lion's Den, defeating Bolander, avenging his loss to Mezger, and beating Shamrock three times.

[edit] Future

At one point, every Den member had won their first fight, but when Ken left for professional wrestling with the World Wrestling Federation, the Lion's Den quickly fell apart. Having left no real hierarchy (Ken was always in charge, everyone else fell under him) the Den was left with five different guys teaching five different ways.

Recently, the Lion's Den was reformed, and is currently training new up and coming fighters.[1]

[edit] Notable fighters

Ken Shamrock is now the coach of the International Fight League team Nevada Lions which features Vernon "Tiger" White , Dan Molina, John Gunderson, Pat Healy, and Roy Nelson as starters with fighters such as Joe Martin (who made his IFL debut in January 2007 in lieu of White) and Devin Conkling as alternates. It is expected that the Lion's Den as a whole will move to Reno, NV in the near future.

[edit] External links

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