MMA Legend and First-Ever UFC Light Heavyweight Champion Frank Shamrock. Photo courtesy of: James Manalisay/Strikeforce

By FCF Staff

After his well documented successes with the UFC, and departure from the promotion, Frank Shamrock spent much of his final years fighting helping build up the Strikeforce organization. In fact, the accomplished fighter’s memorable bouts with Phil Baroni, Cung Le and lastly Nick Diaz, were some of Strikeforce’s biggest to date.

In a recent appearance on The MMA Hour, however, Shamrock criticized the way ZUFFA has handled the promotion since it acquired Strikeforce early last year. According to MMA Fighting.com, one of Shamrock’s comments included:

“Strikeforce is alive and it has a great soul. It’s just that they’ve been picking the soul out of it and taking the talent away from it and now it’s a shell. It can definitely be rebuilt. Strikeforce was amazing. The idea of it is still, it still has value. But the way it is being treated, they are plucking all the value out of it.”

Shamrock, who has been critical of ZUFFA in the past, is also a commentator for Showtime. The network decided not to broadcast Strikeforce’s September 29th event after headliner Gilbert Melendez withdrew due to injury. Strikeforce then proceeded to cancel the card altogether.

Since Strikeforce was purchased by ZUFFA, several of the promotion’s biggest names have moved to the UFC, some of which include Nick Diaz, Cung Le,  and Alistair Overeem among others.