It had to be a hernia.
The lump presented itself to Richard “Shaky” Shore in May 2022 after a routinely grueling session at his gym, Shore Mixed Martial Arts, in Abertillery, Wales.
A pioneer of the Welsh scene, Shaky was an avid competitor before transitioning to coaching, where he guided his son, Jack — among other UFC veterans like Jack Marshman, Brett Johns, and Oban Elliott — to the biggest mixed martial arts stages in the world.
His first visit to his local general practitioner confirmed his initial theory. Aside from not lifting too heavy, the black belt’s life was the same as ever. He scheduled himself for a hernia removal, and in July, and one of the most accomplished coaches in the country presented himself for a pre-op.
Noting his branded jiu-jitsu t-shirt, the doctor chewed Shaky’s ear on all things martial arts before he began prodding at the protrusion and asking his patient to gauge his pain level from zero to ten.
“Zero,” Shaky told him.
“I appreciate you’re a fighter, but leave your ego at the door,” the doctor replied.
“Honestly, there’s zero pain, doc,” Shaky told him again.
Confused by his non-reaction, the doctor asked if he would come back the following day for an ultrasound. After undergoing the examination, Shaky was sitting on a hospital bed staring at a black hole on his groin that had been revealed by the scan.
“I can categorically tell you this is not a hernia,” the doctor declared.
When he was offered an MRI after the brief exchange, Shaky agreed and began to worry. After the MRI, he’d have a four-week wait for his results and was urged to rush to hospital if the lump began to swell.
Sure enough, two weeks later, that’s exactly what happened.
It took 10 hours to be seen. The area was examined and Shaky explained to the the medical staff that he had just undergone an MRI. Without batting an eyelid, when the doctor studied the scan, he offered the following:
“Oh, this could be cancer.”
The next months were filled with frenzied phone calls, painful injections, a failed biopsy that led to surgery, plenty of stress and a mountain of worry. Eventually, a couple of days before his 51st birthday in November, Shaky was scheduled to meet an expert.
“Let’s talk about your journey so far,” was his opening gambit, sending Shaky’s hopes plummeting. When he begged the doctor to get down to brass tacks, the next words left him numb.
“You’ve got non-Hodgkin lymphoma cancer and you’re going to need chemotherapy as soon as possible.”
Delivering the developments to his nearest and dearest was very difficult for Shaky.
Although his wife, Lisa, had accompanied him for the diagnosis, he still had the unenviable task of telling his daughter, Alys, and Jack, who had been kept in the dark about the severity of the situation up until that point.
When the hospital circled December 23rd as the start date for his chemotherapy, Shaky found himself face to face with his own mortality.
“I told the doctor that this could be my last Christmas with my family and I don’t want to be in treatment during that time,” he remembers.
Due to his physical fitness, the hospital granted Shaky’s request. The new start date, however, was January 6. Lisa’s birthday.
“The next five months were the worst of my life physically and mentally. The chemotherapy ruined me. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. I resigned myself to just getting on with it,” he says.
“I’m not afraid to die, but I was afraid of what I was leaving behind. My grandson was about to be born. I was worried about my wife that I’ve been with for 30 years, my kids. It’s a lot mentally. The physical part, I’ve been dealing with physical pain my whole life. The mental part was the toughest part.”
Undergoing chemotherapy every three weeks during the process, Shaky felt like he was dying for days after each administration. That was followed by a week of recovery, then a week of feeling back to himself, then the process would begin again.
I’m not afraid to die, but I was afraid of what I was leaving behind. My grandson was about to be born. I was worried about my wife that I’ve been with for 30 years, my kids. It’s a lot mentally.
Given a course of 20 steroids a day to aid his ailments during the period, Shaky was understandably drained a lot the time. He anticipated that kind of reaction, but nobody warned him about potential hallucinations he could encounter.
Sleepless after his first bout of chemo, Shaky decided to reposition himself on his living room couch. Every time he was about to nod off, the treasured family shih tzu inevitability woke him before scampering from the scene. When Lisa discovered him on the couch the next morning, Shaky explained his all-night battle with his canine counterpart.
“But the dog’s not here, he was over in Aly’s house all night,” she revealed.
“As real as I’m here talking to you now, that dog was coming over to me every 10 minutes,” he laughs, recalling the episode.
Shaky continued to train despite his situation. Going to his gym, putting himself through a workout and a spell in the sauna made him feel back to himself. Due to the risk of catching a cold, which could result in delaying his chemo process, he had to isolate himself as much as possible from training partners.
When Jack was offered a March 2023 fight at UFC 286 in London against Makwan Amirkhani, a bout that would mark his UFC featherweight debut, he was reluctant to take it with everything going on.
“I told him, ‘Look, this gives me something to aim for. I know it’s going to be tough for you, but I promise I’ll be at the gym as much as I can. This will give me something to live for,’” Shaky says. “I know he’s my son, but I have so much respect for him as a man. To prepare for a fight with all the sh*t that was going on with me, he had his mother to worry about as well, I couldn’t help but admire it.”
Unable to be as hands-on as usual during the camp, and in the midst of chemo throughout, Shaky had form to fly off the handle more suddenly than his team was used to.
“I’d just go down with a mask on and bark my orders from the side of the mat. It wasn’t ideal, but we managed,” he remembers.
“My camera guy, Joe, caught it all,” Jack says with a laugh. “He was petrified that [Shaky] was going to look up and be like, ‘Are you f*cking filming me?’ He thought, ‘If he catches me now I’m going to be in the firing line!’”
Back when he was diagnosed, he had a picture of a sickly chemotherapy patient in his mind, but when Shaky looked in the mirror he saw something completely different.
Through his routine gym sessions and the assistance of steroids he was prescribed, Shaky had blown up by 15 pounds. While he was grateful for his strength, he was particularly conscious of his head, which he felt was notably swollen due to his situation.
Instead of the baseball caps UFC corner-workers are usually provided, Shaky put in a special request via Jack to get a beanie hat. Having kept the situation away from the public eye, he was adamant that his cancer battle would not become the story of his son’s fight week.
The UFC went out of its way to make sure the beanie was provided, which subsequently became a running joke for the team in London.
“If I have a size 10 head, that hat was a size two,” he says. “It was like a swimming cap!”
The fight didn’t begin the way they planned. Amirkhani was able to implement his signature wrestling style, and when Jack returned to his corner between rounds, he was most likely a round down.
“We have just drilled a head kick for six weeks and you have not thrown one,” Shaky patiently told his son in the corner.
Jack landed four head kicks in the second round. Amirkhani desperately failed on takedown attempts, and just when he was expecting another thudding kick upstairs, Jack took him down before claiming a second round submission.
In the aftermath, Jack used his post-fight interview to pay homage to his father. Shaky watched on as a pool of watery pride formed in his eyes.
“Let me tell you something about my dad,” Jack told Daniel Cormier in the Octagon after the fight.
“November 2022, he was diagnosed with cancer. He finished his chemo treatment two weeks ago and he’s here to corner me today. He’s got radiotherapy next week, and let me tell you, if he f*cking tells me to do something, I’m gonna do it.”
In the wake of UFC London, thousands of people from all over the world contacted Shaky.
As he had been doing his whole life, he was happy to give people advice as they geared up for the fight of their lives.
Twelve weeks after his last radiotherapy session, Shaky and Lisa sat at home waiting for the call to find out if the treatment was successful. His anxiety was through the roof, and when the call hadn’t come 30 minutes after it was scheduled, he was fit to be tied.
Eventually the phone rang.
“Richard, I’m going to cut to the chase, you’re all clear,” said the voice the other end of the line.
“I’ve had some really great moments in my life, but that up there with any of them,” says Shaky.
To celebrate, he went straight down to Shore Martial Arts and taught a jiu-jitsu class.
As he tells his story from a lobby in Edmonton ahead of Jack’s fight this weekend with Youssef Zalal, you can sense the appreciation Shaky has for being back on the front lines, where he’s supposed to be.
His battle has given him purpose. He fundraises for the hospital that oversaw his treatment and he’s still happy to help when fellow patients get in touch.
On the mats in Abertillery, he constantly uses the darkest moment of his life as punchline. Every time he submits one of the fighters, they prepare to get hit with what’s become his signature gag:
“I can’t believe I just tapped you, I’ve just had cancer, you know!”
For the Shores, life is back to normal. Jack is readying to make his return Saturday against Youssef Zalal at UFC Edmonton, and Shaky stays on top of his scans and is back to doing what he loves without any restrictions. Like most cancer patients, he understatedly has dark days, but it’s something that he addressed by seeing a counsellor.
“I talk to her and I feel better, I feel good,” he explains. “I’m happy to say that too. Particularly, in an alpha environment like this, people don’t want to show their weak side. I don’t see it as weakness, I see it as a strength when someone can put their hand up and say that they’re struggling a bit.”
The experience has changed him. Before, the thoughts of one of his fighters losing would nearly force him to breakout in a rash, but he takes things in his stride now. More than anything, it has taught him to be grateful for what he has.
“When I was having my radiotherapy treatments, I can remember seeing this little kid. He was about 9 or 10 years old and he didn’t have a hair on his head, no eyebrows even. He was running around with a big smile on his face. Mate, when I saw it, I couldn’t help it, I just started crying,” he remembers.
“I thought f*cking hell, how am I sat here feeling sorry for myself? How must this child’s parents feel? With everything this child is going through, he’s still got this massive smile on his face. I guess that’s what I took from it — there’s always someone worse off than you. You can find strength in that.”
