Richard Shore

Richard "Shakey" Shore earned his Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu black belt circa mid-2015, a milestone documented in the Belt Promotions roundup published in Jiu-Jitsu Style magazine Issue 27 (2015). The promotion is associated with Dave Coles, a recognised BJJ pioneer and instructor at Combat Academy in the United Kingdom, and Braulio Estima, a multiple-time World Champion and ADCC Champion widely regarded as one of the sport's most decorated competitors.

While the precise nature of any joint involvement between both figures is drawn from the magazine's belt roundup and has not been independently verified beyond that report, the promotion carries considerable weight. It situates Shore within a lineage that connects Welsh BJJ to two of the most accomplished names in the global game — grounding his development in both domestic and world-class competitive traditions.

Shore's path to the black belt placed him firmly within the broader UK BJJ network during a period of significant growth for the sport across Wales and Britain. His connection to Dave Coles, long regarded as a foundational voice in British jiu-jitsu, reflects the community ties that shaped his evolution as both a practitioner and an instructor.

Shore's contribution to Welsh combat sports extends well beyond his role on the mats. As Founder and Head Instructor of Tillery Combat MMA Academy, he positioned himself as a central architect of BJJ and MMA infrastructure in the region. Establishing Tillery Combat represented a meaningful commitment to building a dedicated combat sports environment in Wales — providing a structured training home for grapplers and MMA athletes alike.

His responsibilities at Tillery Combat stretched far beyond day-to-day coaching. Shore shaped the gym's identity, defined its curriculum, and carved out its place within the Welsh martial arts community. His dual engagement — maintaining ties with Combat Academy while developing his own institution — reflects a pattern common among serious instructors who seek to honour their training lineage while cultivating independent coaching environments. This work established Shore as one of the more prominent figures in Welsh BJJ during the mid-2010s.

Shore Mixed Martial Arts — known widely as SMMA — represents Shore's primary affiliation and the clearest expression of his long-term vision as a coach and gym builder. Where Tillery Combat MMA Academy marked an earlier chapter in his journey as a founder, SMMA reflects a deeper, more developed commitment to creating sustainable grappling and MMA training environments under his own banner in Wales.

As founder and head instructor of SMMA, Shore brings together the technical foundations instilled through his training lineage and the experience accumulated across years of running competitive combat sports programmes. His discussion of SMMA in interview and podcast settings underscores that the gym operates as an active, evolving project — community-rooted, technically grounded, and built around the identity Shore has forged throughout his career on and off the mats.