Shinya Aoki simply believes that Jake Shields does not have a shot against Georges St. Pierre. While we were out here in Singapore, I asked him twice just to make sure that my Japanenglish wasn’t malfunctioning. In fact, that seems to be the perception of a lot of people in the MMA world (including you Eric, I’m sure there’s an Eric out there reading this). Like me, I’m sure you saw Jake’s mountain hippie father on the UFC 129: Primetime last night and got curious. Check out what Jake’s father said about being his son’s manager in an interview with Ben Fowlkes from MMAFighting earlier today.
“After the [‘Mach’] Sakurai fight he didn’t get any offers. He upset Sakurai and then two months later he still wasn’t in any fights. So he asked me to find him a fight.”
The elder Shields had some experience representing bands and putting together the occasional music festival in the Sierra Nevada mountains, but he had never come close to managing a pro fighter before. Still, this was his son asking for his help, so he made some calls, offered the U.S. Shooto organization a few suggestions, and soon Jake had a fight.
“Jake asked me to manage him after that and I said, ‘I’m sure there’s someone down there who knows the business a lot better than I do. I’m all the way up here in the mountains. There’s got to be someone closer to you who knows this business.’ Six to eight months later he sent me a contract that somebody wanted him to sign and then I took over. It was terrible. I had to [delete] the whole thing and write a new one.”
One could only imagine how many illegal activities are included in the ‘occasional music festival in the Sierra Neva mountains.’ Since Shield’s father has become his manager, Jake has gone 18-1-1. Perhaps there is a nest of unforeseen managing power that can be found within all mountain hippies. Someone investigate that. [Source]
