The Ultimate Fighting Championship used its “25 Years in Short” documentary series to drop a new video featuring the famed Lion’s Den fight camp. The team, which many believe to be one of the top teams in mixed martial arts, produced fighters like Frank Shamrock, Vernon White, Mikey Burnett, Roy Nelson, Guy Mezger, and more.
The latest part of the Emmy-nominated documentary series — which was nominated in the “Outstanding Edited Sports Special or Series” — is titled “The Lion’s Den – The Story of the First MMA Team.”
“UFC 25 Years in Short” originally premiered in the fall of 2018, but now the promotion has decided to make it available on YouTube.
The video premiered on YouTube Wednesday, May 22.
You can watch the full video below.
In 1994, Ken Shamrock assembled the first ever MMA team – the Lion’s Den – and showed success in the ultimate individual sport was a team effort.
The Lion’s Den was founded in 1994 by Ken Shamrock, who was the first King of Pancrase and Superfight Champion of the UFC. He famously competed in UFC 1 against eventual champion Royce Gracie. The Lion’s Den has training facilities in Reno, Nevada; Dallas, Texas; and Scottsdale, Arizona. It was originally based out of Lodi, California and San Diego, California before moving the headquarters to Reno.
In order to join the Lion’s Den fighters would have to go through a brutal tryout which included 500 squats, 200 push ups, 200 sit ups, a 1.5-mile run, runs up and down the bleachers, uphill bear-crawls, carrying heavy barrels of water and sand up hills and doing as many pull-ups as possible without stopping. After the tryout, the potential candidates would be invited to the Lion’s Den headquarters where they were subjected to sparring for several hours.
Champions from the gym include Ken and Frank Shamrock, Maurice Smith, Travis Lutter, Roy Nelson, and Vernon White, among others.