Jake Shields: Cesar Gracie’s Is Always My Team and Always Will Be

There have been a lot of changes lately for fighters moving to new teams or exiting their old training camps.

Michael Bisping recently left Wolfslair, Paul Daley is leaving Team Rough House, and Alistair Overeem just made the decision to work full time with the Blackzilians in Florida.

Well don’t count Jake Shields among those defecting to a new team.

The former Strikeforce middleweight champion recently did some training and work in Florida alongside the Blackzilian team during his preparation for his upcoming fight against Yoshihiro Akiyama, but he wants to make it clear that his team at Cesar Gracie Jiu-Jitsu will always be his home team.

“Cesar Gracie’s always my team and always will be, Nick (Diaz), Nate (Diaz), Gil (Melendez), those are the guys I’ve been training with for over 10 years now, and I have no intentions of ever changing that,” Shields told MMAWeekly Radio in an interview that will air next week.

“But every now and again I just think it’s nice to switch things up for a week or two, get some different bodies and different looks, and different ideas from different gyms.”

Shields has been a nomad in the past traveling to different camps to work out and help different teams. He spent plenty of time working with the team at American Kickboxing Academy, went to Huntington Beach to help Michael Bisping prepare for his last fight at UFC on Fox, and has worked extensively with Chael Sonnen in the past as well.

For this training camp thanks to his manager Glenn Robinson at Authentic Sports Management, Shields was invited to train at the Blackzilian camp in Florida. While he only made it there for a few days, it was good to switch things up and see some fresh faces.

“I only made it out for a week, but it was good,” said Shields. “A lot of good guys out there, they’ve got Henry (Hooft) a great kickboxing trainer, so it’s good. Glenn (Robinson) is managing me and he manages most of those fighters, so it just makes a relationship with that team.”

As rumors do tend to get started however once pictures of Shields started surfacing where he was working with the upstart team, everyone started to speculate if he was leaving Team Cesar Gracie for the Blackzilians.

Shields answered that with an emphatic ‘no’.

“I have no intention of leaving. I guess there was some rumor and people were asking me about if I was switching to that team. Someone started a rumor somewhere I guess. It’s definitely not true. Yeah, my manager manages those guys and so I’m affiliated through that way, but I don’t plan on it being my team,” Shields stated.

“I might go out there from time to time to train, and get some help where I can, but my home team is definitely Cesar Gracie’s and will continue to be.”

Shields is currently finishing up his camp in California before heading to Japan for UFC 144 where he faces Yoshihiro Akiyama on the main card.

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