MMA pioneer Frank Shamrock recently appeared on MMA Fighting’s “The MMA Hour” where he detailed his struggles with alcoholism, saying that the sale of Strikeforce to Zuffa in 2011, combined with his genetics, left him “golfing and drinking all day.”

Shamrock was promoting his new autobiography, “Uncaged: My Life as a Champion MMA Fighter.”

“I can’t pin my drinking issues on the sale of Strikeforce,” Shamrock said. “It’s a genetic disease I’ve been fighting my whole life. But that was certainly the pinnacle of coming to the realization I shouldn’t be out drinking. I think it’s because I fought so hard, and we had fought so hard against the unbeatable adversary, the UFC.

“I had so much personally invested in the vision or the dream or the chance of Strikeforce. It was my whole life. I didn’t have another life. That’s all that I did. This whole experience and journey saved my life. It was a dark day. It was honestly a dark day when it was sold.”

In spite of the role Shamrock said the Strikeforce sale played in compounding his alcoholism, he says he’s fought the disease for a long while.

“I always thought that the barrier of me not being an alcoholic or having problems was not wrecking a car, killing somebody or drunk driving. I thought if you weren’t doing that, you were just fine. It turns out, I had a problem for years.”

Shamrock said he’s had a hard time dealing with the Strikeforce sale… Continue reading on page 2.

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