Those trying to keep up with Frank Shamrock’s tentative fight schedules have probably found it easy to get confused. Phil Baroni is no exception.
In addition to an in-ring public announcement at a StrikeForce event that Frank Shamrock and Phil Baroni would fight in a future StrikeForce show, Shamrock had seemed to go out of his way by filming videos aimed at making fun of Baroni and publishing them online. Yet, after all the bluster, Shamrock’s next fight is set to be against Renzo Gracie in February for another promotion, and not against Baroni in StrikeForce.
Signing to fight outside of StrikeForce in his next fight has caused legal tension between Shamrock and StrikeForce, and it’s also basically pushed Baroni to his tipping point of patience with Shamrock.
"Basically I think he has vaginitis" says Baroni over the phone with InsideFighting.
"He's a f_king chump and impossible to work with. I just don't think the guy wanted to fight and so he called me out, a guy he thought wouldn't be allowed to fight him because I was with Pride. But then I got Pride's permission to do it and he f_king panics. At the end of the day, no one wants to fight me" Baroni continues.
And although Baroni's inflammatory diagnosis of Shamrock does not have solid medical footing, it's clear that he sincerely believes Shamrock is avoiding him, and that his doing so has made things difficult.
"I knew all along that something like this would happen. But I listened to people saying 'Frank Shamrock is a big fight’ so I thought 'we'll see how it plays out'. I went to Russia for a couple of weeks. I was ready for April, maybe March. He's f_ked me. Really, he's under contract with StrikeForce. They are trying to find another opponent for me, and it would be for the same money and that's great. But it's not about the money for me" says Baroni.
Baroni seems to believe that Shamrock fighting outside of StrikeForce for his next bout would violate his StrikeForce contract and as a result seriously imperils the likelihood of their fight happening. For the record, a statement regarding Frank Shamrock's contract with StrikeForce from Mike Afromowitz gives the impression that the promotion isn't much happier with the situation than Baroni is.
"As of now, the issue with Pro Elite and Frank Shamrock has become a legal matter for Strikeforce. Therefore, we cannot really discuss the situation in detail. All I can say is that Frank Shamrock signed a contract to fight his NEXT bout under the promotion of Strikeforce. Therefore, [the] contract with the other promotion violates his original agreement with Strikeforce" Afromowitz wrote in a late December e-mail response to InsideFighting.
But back to Baroni, his comments about "it" not being about the money belie where he's at mentally and what types of goals the man has left for his career. For Baroni, it's "do or die" right now and success will be defined only by fighting the best in the world.
"My career has had a lot of ups and downs. I'm not twenty or twenty five anymore. It's time for me to make it to the next level or bow out. It's do or die right now for me to carry it out to the next level" Baroni says.
Baroni's overall MMA record of 10-7 alone does not tell the reality of his high-level career. His has not been a career with any tune-up or smaller show fights. Rather, Baroni has fought some of the best fighters in his weight class (Matt Lindland, Evan Tanner, Amar Suloev, Yuki Kondo and Kazuo Misaki, to name a few) in the top global promotions, including the UFC and Pride, for over six years.
For Baroni, who says he is open to fighting anywhere the big names are waiting, it's all about building a legacy from here on out.
"I realize that I'm not going to get rich fighting. I'm going to have to work for the rest of my life. But I don’t want to be remembered as a tough kid, a journeymen who didn't get to the top. I want to fight the best to leave my mark. I have fought the best out there. Lindland, Misaki, ask them both who the toughest guy they've fought was and they'll tell ya it was me.
"Shit happens, careers don't go right, things don't go as planned, but I've got a lot of f_king fights left in me. It's a new age in fighting right now. It's not that the game has passed me by, but some things have passed me by. I've been working on my ground game more and just opening my mind up to a lot. I've matured a lot mentally. I'm more open now. I'm not ready to die."
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