Former All-Pro LB recruiting former athletes to join MMA promotion
Mixed martial arts have been a popular post-NFL career for several players who have the desire to keep the competitive juices flowing.
However, ex-Los Angeles Chargers linebacker Shawne Merriman was introduced to the sport right as his NFL career was taking off by Jay Glazer, an NFL analyst for Fox Sports and a well-connected media guru in the combat sports community that Merriman got to know when the Chargers were based in San Diego.
Now, more than a decade after he left the NFL, Merriman is involved in MMA full-time as the owner of Lights Out Xtreme Fighting—a southern California-based martial arts company that gives up-and-coming fighters experience on a competitive level and also welcomes athletes from other professional sports to try out MMA.
“It was time for me to launch my own promotion, my own league, to concentrate on some of these former athletes and get them to transition over to MMA,” Merriman told MMA Junkie. “It’s going to happen. I’ve been saying it for the last eight years. We’re starting to see Adrian Peterson, Le’Veon Bell, Greg Hardy. We’re starting to see a lot of those guys make this transition. Watch over the next 12 to 24 months. Watch how many big-name NFL guys transition over to MMA.”
Peterson and Bell are just two of many former NFL players including Frank Gore, Alonzo Highsmith, Tom Zbikowski and Ray Edwards who took up boxing after leaving the league. Several former NFLers have also tried their hand at MMA including Hardy, Brock Lesnar, Eryk Anders, Ovince St. Preux, Matt Mitrione and Herschel Walker.
Merriman, who retired in 2012, was in talks with Japanese MMA promotion GANRYUJIMA in 2015 about becoming a full-time fighter but no deal was ever reached. Three years later, he signed with the World Bare Knuckle Fighting Federation but he could not get licensed to fight through the Wyoming athletic commission for his debut bout and the company and Merriman severed ties after a pay dispute.
The next year, Merriman founded LXF, which has put on nine events over the last five years and held two fight cards in 2023 after a one-year hiatus in 2022. Merriman announced on Twitter that the company's 10th event will feature a 16-bout fight card and is expected to be the biggest event in LXF history.
The 39-year-old former No. 12 overall pick told TMZ Sports in January that he’s open to stepping into the cage if the right opponent comes across his desk.
"I'm not opposed to [fighting]," he said. "I would fight the right former athlete, another guy in the WWE, something that people would pay to see in Lights Out."
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