When Shem Rock chose to flee from the police, he did not think he would last a day.
He was wrong – he eluded them for seven years. But, remarkably, it would lead him out of a difficult life in the most unexpected way.
Accused of a burglary with violence and assault in 2014, Liverpool’s Rock went on the run aged 20, fearing he would be jailed for a crime he did not commit.
He packed his belongings, set his alarm for 5am and left his house in Toxteth the next morning.
“I thought, ‘They’re going to put a block on this passport’, but they didn’t,” Rock told BBC Sport.
“Then I thought when I get to the border in France, they will say, ‘passports please’, and arrest me. They didn’t even look at my passport.
“I got off the Eurostar train in France like, ‘wow’. Then I knew they were not going to stop me.”
Rock, whose full name is Shaqueme Rock, moved on to Malaysia, and it would be seven years before he would be arrested back in the UK, where he served six months in custody on remand.
In 2022 he was found not guilty in court, clearing his name of the charge which had cast a shadow over his life.
Now, after building a four-fight win streak in European promotion Oktagon, Rock is set to make his UFC debut at the age of 32.
Rock, who trains at Liverpool’s Next Generation MMA gym alongside Paddy Pimblett, faces Tajikistan’s Nurullo Aliev in a lightweight bout in Qatar on Saturday.
His team-mate from Liverpool Luke Riley is also debuting for the UFC on the same card against Austrian featherweight Bogdan Grad.
“That was my old life, this is my new life, and now the sky is the limit,” said Rock.
“Everything that I’ve been through, all the hurdles, all the doors being slammed in my face, all the haters – it’s built my character and made me hungrier.”
