By Feliz Rodriguez, Staff Writer
HOUSTON, TX, February 28, 2013 – As far as goals go, Legacy heavyweight title contender Ricky ‘Ice Cold’ Shivers has one more goal to accomplish this Friday night besides beating Derrick Lewis in the main event of the evening. Come Legacy Fighting Championship 18 he wants to go beyond that and win the Houston MMA Community’s respect.
Entering the bout on a two-fight win streak and 18 fights overall dating back to his days of living in Alaska, the now-Houston resident has been around the block once or twice but wants to breed familiarity with an exceptional performance in his first time out here in Texas.
“I’m in amazing shape,” said the Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu black belt to TXMMA. He feels that his skills are at an all-time high after a very successful training camp with Gracie Barra’s network of Texas academies. Taking this fight as seriously as befitting a championship fight of this caliber, Shivers finished off his hard training by spending the final three weeks of camp at Team Quest-San Diego. It was there that he got to spar with top-caliber athletes like Luke Rockhold, Dan Henderson, Dave Herman, Jesse Taylor and Tarec Saffiedine have prepared him for anything Lewis has to offer. It’s also some of those guys that he hopes to draw from in terms of showing Houston that he is a crowd-pleaser with a knack for finishing fights – either by strikes or submission.
“I don’t look past any opponent and know anything can happen in the cage but I like my chances,” he says. Lewis is a big, strong opponent who hits hard as a mule but Shivers is confident that he’s superior in every facet of MMA. In conversations with us and through other interviews “Ice Cold” says he can keep away from “The Black Beast: by outstriking him on the outside. And as a BJJ black belt, he feels he has the edge if this fight were to go on the ground.
As far as predictions go, he thinks he’ll be dominating the fight and winning in the third round.
“I’m exciting to fight in front of my students and earn this belt,” says Shivers – a head coach at Gracie Barra Champions in North Houston. “Hard work pays off and I have not shied away from it in order to achieve success as a mixed martial artist.”
Maybe that will earn him the respect of the crowds along with a championship belt.