Jake Shields in the Mainstream

By Nicholas Bailey (nbailey@mmaratings.net)

The first time I ever saw a Jake Shields fight, it was his smothering decision win over Mach Sakurai. I knew that Shields had a reputation for being an awesome grappler and a bit of a blanket, but I was stunned at how inert he was able to render as dynamic an offensive force as Sakurai. It was also, I thought, all I’d ever care to see from Shields. An impressive exhibition of skill, to be sure, but not the stuff of highlight reels. I told myself that, for as long as Shields wanted to use his considerable talents to simply hold his opponent down and freeze them in amber, I would give him credit for his ability to negate professional fighters, but I would content myself to simply check his record for another W-Decision rather than observe the proceedings myself.

Jake and I continued along in this way for a while, he mercilessly suffocating opponents, and I reading about it with little more than grudging acknowledgment. When Jake won the rumble on the rock tournament (beating both Yushin Okami and Carlos Condit) it was clear that big changes were afoot for Jake. Despite a stellar record in Shooto, he’d never really received much attention from the big leagues, but now he could not be denied.

But there was something else changing for Jake. He’d developed enough self-confidence in his grappling that he was willing to take risks. In fact, he seemed hell-bent on getting his opponents out of the fight as quickly as possible. After accruing only four stoppages in his first twenty fights, He rattled off quick stoppages in his next eight, and I forgave him his past transgressions. Yes, he still had miserable standup and seemed afraid to let anyone back up to possibly challenge him on the feet, but he seemed to channel this desperation into a desire to finish opponents, and finish he did.

Yes, his opponents still became unnaturally acquainted with the canvas and the feeling of Jake smashing them into it as flat as he could, but any attempt by the victim to extricate themselves led only to relentless positional improvement, submission attempts, and occasionally vicious ground and pound. Shields, who had always been a phenomenally gifted grappler, had finally learned how to finish.

And so it was with some interest that I sat in the audience on Saturday’s Strikfeforce event, watching Mayhem do his thing on the catwalk and wondering what would happen when the finish-oriented Shields encountered the defensive prodigy in Mayhem. I expected the grappling would be close, with Shields having an advantage in wrestling and positional dominance, with Mayhem enjoying a striking advantage and eventually wearing Shields down late in the fight.

So, after a five round fight that saw Shields relentlessly heckled from the audience and soundly booed when his hand was raised and the belt put around his waist, has Shields returned to his old ways? Are his fights again the cure for insomnia, to be avoided by those operating heavy machinery or driving?

I say no, and that much of the opprobrium directed his way is unwarranted. I am not going to tell you that I, an elitist, understood the intricacies of the ground game whereas those that hated the fight did not, and that it was completely enthralling. However, characterizing it as a wet-blanket, lay-and-pray type of victory is wildly off the mark.

The essence of lay-and-pray is the absence of attempts to end the fight. A supposed fighter doesn’t actually engage in a fight, and simply tries to ride out the time alloted and be awarded the decision. Shields, despite having the positional dominance and control to do such a thing, instead relentlessly improved his position, and attempted a wide variety of submissions, including but not limited to, rear-naked chokes, heel-hooks, arm-triangle chokes, and the twister. All of these attempts were fairly threatening, but by the end of the fight, the sense was that Miller was never in serious danger and that it’s boring to see Shields even try to submit him.

Why is that?

Excitement in a fight comes from potentially fight-ending techniques, or the perception thereof. When a fighter has his head buried in his opponents chest and is landing chipping shots to the ear from within the guard, it’s clear that he’s not going to knock his opponent senseless (with the possible exception of Jorge Santiago). If a fighter comes out throwing spinning back axe kicks, that is exciting stuff. However, if he doesn’t come close to landing any of them and it becomes clear to fans that he is telegraphing such attacks and his opponent will never be hit by them, such theatrics will be frustrating and boring to the audience by the third round.

So the same audience that was thrilled when Shields mounted Miller in the first or took his back in the second heckled him as he attempted submissions from those positions in the fourth and fifth. Miller is an exceptional human being, tough, extremely flexible, and technically gifted defensively. He regularly escaped bad positions, causing Shields to have to work back into the dominant position (which he did so with virtuosity). What’s more, Miller never even seemed phased by submission attempts. That twister, that arm-triangle, and that heel-hook would have been alarm-flashing danger for the vast majority of fighters, but they were little more than irritations to Miller. Furthermore, Miller, despite playing loose with positions and giving up his back and mount on numerous occasions, played a very defensive game, largely due to the fact that he was in terrible positions being threatened and had little choice but to slow the fight down to save himself.

The end product was a fight that was likely more damaging to Shields reputation with fans than being finished by Miller would have been. That string of quick finishes is now meaningless, since in the biggest fight of his career Shields failed to finish such a tough fighter. Of course, nothing is permanent in MMA, and his next fight can provide another massive change in his public perception.

Just as the Miler fight, due to Miller’s unique style, killed his reputation, Shields is very much at the mercy of Strikeforce’s matchmaking. If he gets put up against someone that can stop his shot, or worse yet Jacare, it’s going to be an utter disaster. The question now is what Strikeforce (or more relevantly, CBS and Showtime) wants to do with their champ, which really depends on how they feel about his fight and whether they are concerned he could do the same thing in front of another 5.5 million people. If they select favorable matchups (Kazuo Misaki would be a good choice), they could rehab his image as a dangerous submission threat, or they could put him in with Jacare and essentially kick him to the curb. Shields might want to assure his superiors that he’s not going to be Bobby Southworth or Antonio McKee and be a nightmare champion putting on unwatchable 5 rounders.

Regardless of his opponent, I’ll be watching his next fight.