Baroni opened his mouth again and ended up eating Frank Shamrock’s fist. Frank dominated the fight even with a blown left knee and although Baroni isn’t world-class, he was the stiffest competition Frank has seen in a long time.
"To kick Baroni’s ass with one leg and no cardio training was quite a feat,” said Shamrock after the fight. Frank later revealed that he tore both the ACL and MCL in his left knee while training at Team Quest in Temecula, Calif. two weeks before the match.
Round one of their match was exciting with Frank dominating the action throwing both leg kicks and clean hand combo’s. Nobody believed that Frank would stand with Phil but he did and even got the better of the exchanges, knocking Phil to the mat with a nasty right-left combo. Phil immediately went for the time-honored leg grab and Frank made him pay with some great GNP. Even with a deduction of a point for two consecutive rabbit punches to the back of Phil’s head, Frank still won the round handily.
Round two was a little different with Phil coming out extremely angry. Every time Frank went to clinch, Phil would break the hold with some great body work to Frank’s ribs. Frank was visibly tired and more stagnant this round. He kept getting hit and doing a slow little pirouette but Phil never made him pay for it. Phil finally went for a single leg which Frank eventually reversed by faking a Kimura and taking Phil’s back. A couple hook’s with the right later, he had the Monte De Leon and Phil was unconscious without a tapout.
Afterwards, when asked about whether he would fight the other top competitors of the sport, Frank had this to say, “I’ve been in this a long time,” he said. “I fought a guy with one knee tonight. I jeopardized my entire career to do this match for everybody tonight, including myself. Was that smart? I don’t really know. Should I continue to do that against people that don’t really have a name and aren’t going to sell pay-per-view and bring wealth to my family? I don’t know. The odds are probably not.”
For a recounting of the rest of the fights, you can read about them on MMAWeekly.