First 3 Succesful American MMA Camps

In the beginning of UFC 3 american teams dominated the competition and had the upper hand by forming formidable camps. Lets examine how the 3 camps rank. IMO team Miletich is not included because they did not compete in the first 10 UFC's

3. Hammer House - Mark Coleman and Kevin Randleman, enough said. Were pure wrestlers who wanted to ground and pound and that was pretty much it. Formed later than the number 1 and 2.

2. R.A.W., Real American Wrestlers- Ricco Chiaperreli's team that was smarter than Hammer House IMO. They were good american wrestlers and knew greco, picked up some stand up and submissions to go with it. In other words they were more diversified than Hammer House because they wanted to be. Dan Henderson and Randy Couture their 2 best fighters IMO.

1. Lions Den - Ken Shamrock formed the Lions Den because he needed better sparring partners. In doing so he created the best American MMA camp of the first 10 UFC's and easily the First 15. They were the first american camp to be well versed in submissions. Also had the best records of first 15 and 20 UFC's as far as wins and UFC tournament and title wins. Fighters that won tournament/titles were Ken Shamrock, Oleg Taktarov, Guy Mezger, Jerry Bohlander,Maurice Smith and Frank Shamrock. Hammer House's own Mark Coleman's first 2 losses were to Lions Den fighters, so Coleman swallowed his pride and went and trained with Lions Den, Ken Shamrock was in his corner UFC 18. The Lions Den showed American Camps they better know submissions, if even for simple defense. Including the names I already mentioned Pete Williams, Jason Delucia, Mikey Burnett, Tra Telligman and Alex Andrade were all members of the Lions Den. Easily the deepest, most diversified, and succesful of the first modern American MMA Camps.

bump for you guys

It's hard to not to include steroids and gassing when your describing Hammer House.

Ninja\Rua/Fan wrote:

It's hard to not to include steroids and gassing when your describing Hammer House.

ya they were definently under the "meathead" column

It's all relative. Nowdays it's hard not to include steroids and bad KO losses with chutebox or MFS elite. three years these camps ruled MMA. I think Steroids were pervasive in all the camps mentioned, including Raw.