The hardest day of my life!
Tryouts for Ken Shamrock's Lion's Den.
My news started on Tuesday June 21st while I was on vacation at my Mother and Father In-Laws. We had gotten back from Vacation Bible School that evening and the lesson of the day was Daniel in the Lion's Den. I realized I had a message on my cell phone upstairs so I checked it out. Little did I realize that the person who left the message was no other than Ken Shamrock. He had invited me for the tryouts he was hosting on the 4th of July weekend. He was apologetic on the short notice and was very humble with his request. Needless to say my heart had stopped for a moment. "My time, my chance" had been presented before me. I was onboard already without hesitation. I only had to confirm it with my best friend and my partner in life, my loving wife Jessica. She was 100% approving and now all that was left was the call to Ken.
I called him and one of his daughters picked up and was very concerned to put me through, I could hear in the back round "It's the Marine dad". I knew right then Ken Shamrock knew who I was. He begun to tell me hat he got my E-mail and was very interested in seeing my Bio/fight footage. And wanted to formally invite me to the try out. I accepted and I was on my way to the computer the next morning to book a flight out to Reno Nevada. The tryout would to be held in Susanville California. Ken told me to fly out there on the 2nd of July so I could help out with his new event he was Hosting that night called Valor. I would be put to work that night as the Red Corner Manager.
As I arrived in Reno I was greeted by Ken's Father Mister Bob Shamrock. We started the long 1 hour drive from Reno to Susanville in his, as Mr. Shamrock would call Mauve 1985 Cadillac Eldorado convertible,. Mr. Shamrock offered me some suntan lotion for my head and I quickly slapped some on. He told me the inside stories of the lion's den and all the history not printed in the magazines. We stopped for some breakfast and were very persistent that he treated me. He was very humble and I will remember his kindness forever. As we pulled up to the America's Best Inn I was in awe that the Like of Bas Rutten, Randy Couture, Guy Metzger, Vernon White, and many other fighters were already there. It was literally the cream of the crop of the fighters in the world staying in this little inn.
I met some of the other fighters that would be there to tryout also. The fights were great that night at Valor. And I was burnt out. I was still on East coast time and had been up for 23 hours up to this point. I was confident we would be starting early in the morning also.
We waited to be picked up in the parking lot Bas Rutten had some conversation with us and wished all 11 of good luck. It was encouraging and motivating to hear this from Bas But we all new it was a form of wake up call. To my surprise we started at noon. After signing some waivers and legal paperwork we moved to the "exercise field".
Ken came out on the porch as we all sat around a couple of tables and the cameras were rolling. He warned us of the inherent danger of this and confirmed with us that we all we aware of this. Then he went on to explain that this is set up for failure and none of us were going to make the lions den. I quickly dismissed this and said yes I can. And in that moment I swore to myself and God I would be the Last man standing at the end of the day.
Let The Pain begin.
We started with a "warm up" as Ken described it. A 30 minute run around his land on rough dirt terrain with a hill about 150 yards long. It turned out to be a pretty hot day about 90 degrees and the sand was reflecting the heat. And the Old Guard, Older Lion's Den fighters, was there in full force.
A couple of fighter's had fallen out of the run quickly lessening the number to around 9.
I am not too sure on who fell out when or where because I was hurting too. The elevation is about 6,500 feet above sea level at the foot of the Seirra Nevada mountain range and I was not prepared for that type of heat either. Upon completion of the run we were instructed to do another warm up drill. Wrestler's use this drill to warm up also, Pummeling for 5 minutes. Then we were instructed by Ken to carry one 50 to 80 pound sandbag on out shoulders around the mile trail. After completing this task we moved right into the water barrel. A barrel about 100 pounds full to add motion we began again around the 1/4 mile trail. We were not to drop the weight at all and hand it off.
We moved to the bottom of the hill and Ken instructed us to Bear Crawl up the hill on our hands and feet then turnaround and continue down the hill. The sand was hot and everybody who was left, about 8 of us now, had the palms of our hands ripped off due to friction and the heat of the sand. The next exercise was a piggy back ride up the hill for me but I would get my turn next to carry my partner. Ken instructed us to then move back up to the house for some fruit and some Gatorade. We were instructed that we would be moving to the Gym for the next part of the tryout.
We quickly moved the mats to cover the floor space and began the next session with squats. 500 squats to be precise. My legs felt like rubber and my head was pounding.
We moved to the next test which was wrestling takedowns for 5 min each, at this point I think there were 7 of us left. The fun part was next. We got to do a round robin in fighting. Not sparring this was a fight and we were in it to win it. 5minutes of this with a new fresh fighter rotating in every 30 seconds. A few more had fallen and we were down to 4 left. The next test would prove to be the hardest for me. 200 Pushups and 500 Sit-ups. Up to this point I had given it my all and I was feeling the effect of the hard work/torture. I completed the task not without the burden of throwing up in my mouth a couple of times only to swallow it back down, I burst after I had completed the task while the camera was in my face and was proud of my handy work.
Guy threw me a towel and told me to clean up my mess and get back in there to finish.
We finished 4 strong and were all accepted into the Lion's Den as brothers of combat and the feeling was amazing. Ken told us that there has never been a couple of Guys to finish together, and that we were the first to finish 4 strong.
It was AJ, a muscle bound wrestler from Nevada, Richard a pro fighter with 5 fights under his belt from Nevada, Ashe a scrappy guy from Louisville who also has a couple of fights under his belt as a pro, and I.
The hardest day in my life has been a humble pleasure and will forever pave my way into the Professional Ranks of Mixed Martial Arts.
Semper Fi and God bless,
Staff Sergeant Phillip Wyman.
