Royce Gracie and Ken Shamrock post-fight
Let’s all get together for MMA story time:
In the beginning, four men sat in the locker room of a Japanese pro-wrestling show contemplating the validity of Japanese shoot fighting’s oldest principle: nobody will ever pay to see real fights; they come for entertainment, not reality. A year later, on September 21, 1993, they formed a promotion to test this principle. The result was an organization where the best kick boxers, catch wrestlers, and shoot fighters of the day would meet in a bout that followed the rules of worked shoot fighting but an actual combative competition. They called it Pancrase Hybrid Wrestling. The four men were Masakatsu Funaki (39-12-1), Minoru Suzuki (27-20-1), Yusuke Fuke (16-29-3), and “The World’s Most Dangerous Man” Ken Shamrock (27-14-2). This was the birth of what we call mixed martial arts today. Three months later, just four days after competing in the third Pancrase show, Ken Shamrock became arguably the biggest star of the first UFC. Despite a loss in the semi-finals to Royce Gracie the fans were drawn to the chiseled features and movie star persona of “The Worlds Most Dangerous Man.” This is just a small piece of the history of the man who was arguably the most important fighter in history of MMA.
Unfortunately, this story and the many others of Shamrock’s storied career are all but old myths and legends to the fans that began following MMA in its dark ages and, to the new breed of TUF era fans, Ken Shamrock is often mislabeled as a failed WWE convert. The level of disrespect from those who either haven’t bothered to educate themselves or, worse by far, those who know what Ken has done for the sport and choose to pretend he is insignificant, is absolutely appalling to any fan like myself who remembers eagerly anticipating the next Ken Shamrock Super fight because he knew that he would be watching the absolute best fighter in the world. Every time he steps in the cage message boards across the web light up with comments like “He should have stuck to WWF, MMA isn’t the place for fake fighters” and “It’s the World’s Most Dangerous Punching Bag” and “The Worlds Most Dangerous Man…to himself.” He fights a man much younger and refuses to go down and instead of the praise a fighter like Forrest Griffin (17-6) or Stephan Bonner (12-7) gets for his heart and determination, he gets a steady stream of ridicule from keyboard warriors who never knew what it was like when the men of MMA fought not for fame and fortune, but to prove that their art, their way, was the best. The following is a list of five fights that every fight fan should see before even being allowed to speak about Ken Shamrock and how much he “deserves” to be in the cage. Maybe, if the newer fans educate themselves, the most influential fighter of the NHB era of MMA will finally get the respect his contemporaries receive.
5. vs. Bas Rutten 2- Pancrase: Eyes of the Beast 2 3/10/1995. Ken Shamrock stepped into the Pancrase ring to defend his King of Pancrase title for the second time in as many months against a man that is widely regarded as the best kick boxer in pre-dark age MMA, “El Guapo” Bas Rutten (28-4-1). Bas was coming in at 7-3 off of a brutal 1:05 KO of Manabu Yamada (23-16-6) and had previously lost to Ken following a 16 minute war that ended with Ken securing a rear naked choke. In their second meeting, not even a year later, Ken demonstrated just how quickly he evolved as a mixed martial artist when he ended their rematch in just 1:01 by knee bar without taking a blow.
4. vs. Dan Severn 1- UFC 6: Clash of the Titans 7/14/1995. After bursting onto the scene in UFC 4 with a brutal double suplex of “Mad Dog” Anthony Macias (23-14) and taking Royce Gracie (14-3-3) to his longest fight by far, “The Beast” Dan Severn (93-16-7) was the UFC 5 tournament champion and the man everyone thought would dominate the UFC for years with his combination of size, Greco-Roman wrestling skill, and ability to beat opponents into submission on the ground. Ken was coming off of a 36 minute draw that effectively ended Royce Gracie’s UFC career and was viewed at the time by most fans as the greatest fighter in the world at that time. It was the bout to crown the first UFC heavyweight (then called Superfight) champion and Severn came out aggressively to grapple with Ken. The difference in the two men is obvious to any educated observer. Ken moves fluidly from clinch to ground to standing game where Severn obviously has trouble mixing the three. In just 2:15, Ken Shamrock capitalized on a flaw in Dan’s wrestling he had seen in earlier footage. Dan liked to put his head down, and Ken took full advantage, locking in a guillotine choke to become the first singles competition UFC champ, a title he would hold for two defenses in that same year.
3. vs. Royce Gracie 2- UFC 5: Return of the Beast 4/4/1995. Just over a month prior to becoming the first UFC Superfight champion, Ken faced Royce Gracie in the first UFC Superfight. This bout was one of the most important fights in the history of MMA perhaps eclipsed only by Shamrock’s later fight with Tito Ortiz, and possibly the up coming fight between Cain Velazquez (8-0) and Brock Lesnar (5-1). A key thing for new fans to know about this fight was it was not supposed to have a time limit. This is important because Ken’s plan was to slowly beat the spirit out of Gracie over the course of two hours. Two hours! In a world where a 25 minute title fight with four rest periods is considered the ultimate test of stamina it’s hard to fathom a fighter training with the expectation of fighting for two hours non-stop. A last minute time limit threw a wrench in this but Ken’s plan clearly worked. Ken Spent a 30 minute round followed by a second 6 minute round in the mythical Gracie Guard that was the end all and say all of combat in the eyes of the fans. There were no judges so the fight was deemed a draw, but the merciless beating Gracie took functionally ended his relevance in MMA. After this fight, Royce Gracie never set foot in the octagon again until 2006, a period of time in which he only fought five times and went 2-1-2. Ken almost one their first match by ankle lock in their first match when he played Gracie’s game, only losing the hold due to tangling himself in Royce’s gi. In the second fight he played his game, and his ability to evolve broke the dominance of the UFC by the Gracie family forever. Perhaps more important than that is that Ken showed the world how to beat BJJ and changed the face of MMA.
2. vs. Kazuyuki Fujita- PRIDE 10: Return of the Warriors 8/27/2000. This fight is important for those learning about Ken Shamrock because it was the first quality opponent he faced after returning from a four year stint in the WWF (now WWE). Ken Shamrock had continued to evolve with the sport during his hiatus through training his highly successful Lion’s Den fight team, but had suffered several severe injuries to his knees in the WWF. These injuries, which included a torn ACL in both knees, would plague him until the “Huntington Beach Bad Boy” Tito Ortiz (15-7-1) bout earned him enough money to pay for the many surgeries he needed to repair the damage. Despite these injuries, Ken Shamrock completely dominated “Iron Head” Kazuyuki Fujita (13-8) for 6:45 before he suffered what he believed was a heart attack (later confirmed to be serious heart palpitations) and had his corner throw in the towel. He later said “Everything went white and I couldn’t see. My heart felt like it was pounding through my chest. I’m not quite sure what happened. I couldn’t control my vision, my balance; I don’t know what was wrong with me.” Up to this point, Ken clearly dominated the fight, showing the world he was just as dangerous standing as he was on the ground.
1. vs. Don Frye- PRIDE 19: Bad Blood 2/24/2002. Ken’s PRIDE 19 fight with former UFC champ and KO record holder “The Predator” Don Frye (20-8-1) was significant on many levels. Aside from being one of the single greatest fights of all time (the hands down greatest fight in my opinion), this fight signified the end of an era. In a time where Fedor was practically unknown even to hardcore fans, Antonio Nogueria was just four fights into his PRIDE career, and Tito Ortiz was just coming into his own following the Zuffa buy out, Don Frye and Ken Shamrock were the last remaining hero’s of MMA’s old guard. This fight is considered by many to be the last great fight of both men’s careers by most MMA pundits. Following years of rivalry stemming from various defamatory remarks about Ken and his family from Frye, the two men met in an epic showdown that was years ahead of its time to settle the score. Despite dropping a razor thin decision, Shamrock blew out both of Don’s ankles as wells as one of his knees with heel hooks provoking the quote “I talked a bunch of trash, so I had to back it up. I couldn’t walk away after talking all that garbage. You’re damn right it hurt. He messed up both my ankles real bad. That caused me to start taking the pain pills and I got a little dependent on the pain meds for a couple of years. If I’d known it was gonna hurt this bad, I’d have kept my mouth shut!”
These bouts are just a handful of examples of what the man so many TUF era fans disrespect has given to the sport. Honorable mention goes to the first bout with Tito and the “Ace” Rich Franklin (27-5) fight. Against Tito, Ken fought with injuries so severe he couldn’t shoot or sweep, limiting his ground game to survival and robbing his power. In spite of this, Ken still took Tito to the championship rounds and even dropped Tito early in the first with a left hook. Against Franklin, Ken locked in an early heel hook that put “Ace” on crutches for a week and was winning the round on two scorecards before slipping while throwing a high kick and suffering a TKO loss. Ken Shamrock is more than just a pioneer of early MMA, he’s a legend who laid the ground work and was years ahead of his time, ushering in many new eras for the sport. He was there in the first MMA event, he was the man who shut down the Gracie guard, he was the first man to truly blend the various facets and styles of the sport efficiently, and he carried the UFC when it may have completely died out in mid 90’s. So before you talk trash from behind your keyboard, sit back and educate yourself about a man who built the foundation of the sport you love.
