Last Friday was an historic night in California combat sports history, as the first ever sanctioned Mixed Martial Arts competition was held in San Jose's packed-to-the roof HP Pavilion. Anticipated since the establishment of the Ultimate Fighting Championships in 1993, the Strikeforce competition marks a landmark moment of legitimacy in a frequently misunderstood sport.

The card read like a who's who of local marital arts talent, with students of Ceasar Gracie (more on him later) Nate Diaz and San Franciscan Gilbert Melendez, who triumphed over Anthony Juarez and Harrison Sarmiento, respectively. San Jose's Brian Ebersole was victorious over Matt Horovich, and local WWE star and winner of MTV's Tough Enough Daniel Puder was victorious in his return to MMA ater a 3 year layoff over Jesse Fujarczyk. Hugely popular San Shou superstar Cung Le made his MMA dedut with a KO of opponent Mike Altman.

But the most anticipated event was the matchup of Cesar Gracie and Frank Shamrock. Like the farmers and the cowboys, MMA's two first families the Gracies and the Shamrocks should be friends, but have been plagued by rivalries and trash talking since the first-round victory via choke by Cesar's cousin Royce over Frank's brother Ken in the first UFC.

Sherdog image of Gracie (black trunks) vs Shamrock (red trunks) by Jeff Sherwood

Reported by Tim Ehhalt

San Jose's 33-year-old Frank Shamrock has studied submission fighting, kick boxing and wrestling, and has held numerous world titles. Pleasant Hill's Cesar Gracie is pure Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, and trainer of some of the world's best fighters, including SFist favorite Jake Shields, Nick Diaz, and Dave Terrell. Although the 40-year-old Gracie had never competed professionally before tonight, he did sport a 14-0 record of 'challenge matches' (most likely, guys walking into the gym demanding to fight him).

But Friday night was not to be Gracie's night. After a brief feeling out period, Frank decided to fake a tackle but throw and land a right hand that would have knocked out a rhinoceros. Gracie fell to the canvas and was greeted with a few more punches via Frank from the top postion, despite Shamrock's having broken his hand with the first punch. At that point, Gracie's corner threw in the towel. Over. 21 seconds. And that's how the fight game goes.

When it was all over, both men were humble with their win and loss. "His first jab was real heavy. So I knew he was sitting down on his punches. He was intending to stand up with me, so I figured I'd give him the old 'looping right hand of death' to see if he was paying attention. And obviously he wasn't", Frank said. When asked if Cesar seemed like he had any experience, Frank said. "You know what? I give him all the credit in the world. He came out, he was sitting down on his punches, he was centered up, he wasn't stumbling or bumbling, the guy had obviously trained. He was obviously ready."

"It's crazy. I mean it's the biggest event ever in North America. So you get in there and say 'Ok I'm just gonna swing with this guy'. One of us is gonna get hit one of us is going down . Unfortunately it was me this time." Cesar said. When asked about sticking to a game plan, he said. "When it's you first fight like that really, it kinda (goes out the window). Once you become a seasoned fighter like the guys on my team Jake, Nick, Gilbert, and those guys, they're a lot better fighters than I am."

Gracie also addressed the fight in his site's forum, saying " I just traded blows with someone alot better than me at striking. I should have clinched and brought him to my world. I just saw the video for the 1st time and am happy John called it cause I was still in a bad position for getting struck when it got called."

This was an historic moment in combat sports history, one we were proud to ba a part of. For a great play-by-play of the entire event, see On The Matt.com, and for photos see Sherdog. The Chronicle's Mike Kepka also got some great shots of both the event and the crowd -- check them out!