Issue 054

September 2009

He is one of the most colorful and polarizing characters in the sport. He is one of a select few men who can claim to have witnessed the birth of MMA. He may no longer be the ‘world’s most dangerous man’, but the fire still burns within Ken Shamrock.  

When I first started out, it was really raw, there were no rules, no time limits. It was definitely straight out of a movie. I mean, people could have gotten killed, no doubt.”  

A Hollywood scriptwriter would have trouble coming up with a life story as interesting as that of Ken Shamrock’s. Picture the tale. A troubled youngster directs his energy into sports to channel his aggression. He is adopted by the man he calls father, a youth worker who runs a home for wayward boys. He enters the world of professional wrestling and is recruited by a team of Japanese shoot-fighters to become a star. He later returns to the USA where he competes in bare-knuckle ‘no holds barred’ tournaments, emerging as one of the world’s premier fighters. He becomes a household name, produces a team of warriors in his own image, and continues fighting well into his 40s.  

It sounds almost too crazy to be true, but that is Ken Shamrock’s life in a nutshell. “I tell you, it has been a very exciting and a very wonderful experience,” he says.  

Most MMA fans know Shamrock best as the former pro wrestler who feuded with Tito Ortiz across three fights and a series of The Ultimate Fighter, but this doesn’t begin to scratch the surface of Shamrock’s time in the sport.  

In the early 1990s, Shamrock was invited to a pro-wrestling tryout in Florida. Originally, he wanted to partake in the rougher, more realistic Japanese leagues, but after he blasted through his sparring partners Shamrock was invited to Japan to train with some of the sport’s biggest names. “I had a pretty good wrestling background, I did some Tough Man contests. I was pretty much a tough guy my whole; life, fighting in the backyard, or in school. So, to me, it was just putting the wrestling and the punching together.”  

It was a different story once he got to Japan. “I went though this initiation where I ended up fighting for two hours, and I had a fresh guy every 30 minutes. I got the crap beat out of me. I got choked out, I got armbarred, I got leglocked, just time and time again – but the one thing that they liked about me was that I never quit.” Satisfied with his potential, they trained him in the art of catch wrestling, a form of submission grappling that predates Brazilian jiu-jitsu by many years.  

The submission holds he learned, particularly the leglock techniques, are what marked Shamrock out from the crowd at the inaugural UFC. Only Royce Gracie had comparable grappling ability, and it was the alien factor of the kimono Gracie wore that would decide the outcome of their first meeting. Gracie submitted Shamrock with a cloth-assisted choke in the semi-finals, but not before Shamrock had practically ripped Pat Smith’s leg off in the opening round. An inconclusive draw against Gracie two years later didn’t help matters, and although it’s been almost 16 years since that first meeting between the two, Shamrock would still rematch Gracie in a heartbeat. “I respect what he has done, he’s a great champion, he has done a lot of great things for the sport – him and myself were the guys that put MMA on the map, therefore I’ve got nothing bad to say about him, but I will stick to my guns. He won’t fight me, he will never fight me, he’ll say he can beat me, he’ll say that he will fight me, but when it comes down to it, 

he won’t.”  

Shamrock’s position in the ‘90s was as one of the sport’s leading figures. He traveled between America and Japan where he and his Lion’s Den fighters competed in events such as the UFC, Pancrase and Pride. Shamrock’s work in establishing the Lion’s Den earns him a spot in the history books as one of the first men to create a ‘super team’ in MMA. He subjected potential recruits to the same type of initiation as he underwent in Japan, and the fighters all lived in the same house.  

Most recently, Shamrock’s career sits under the shadow of a string of losses. He has had 12 fights since 2000 yet has won only four of them. The losses that stand out the most are those to bitter rival Tito Ortiz. “We had our battles,” he says. “Unfortunately they didn’t work out for me. It’s just the way it is, there’s nothing I can do about it. I got to take my medicine.”  

Currently sidelined until February 2010, Shamrock feels that now he has rehabilitated a number of serious injuries that hampered him through the last few years, he can still compete, even at 45 years of age. “I’m a much better, well-rounded fighter on the ground and the stand-up. I love to fight and it’s what I do.  

“For the first part of my career, I went in and fought and proved to the world that I was the best. And then I entertained millions and millions of fans over the years. I have now come to the point in my career where I am doing it because I enjoy it. I’m not out trying to prove to anybody that I’m the best in the world, I just want to compete and have fun.”  

Career Snapshot

1990

Debuts in early shoot-fighting event Pancrase, two months before fighting on UFC 1.   

1994

Becomes first ever King of Pancrase.   

1995

Fights legendary figures such as Royce Gracie, Bas Rutten, Oleg Taktarov and Dan Severn.   

1997

Goes back to pro wrestling for two years, furthering his popularity.   

2000

Returns to MMA, fighting in Japanese promotion Pride.

2002

In his first UFC fight since 1996, he fights Tito Ortiz.   

2006

Appears as a coach on TUF 3.