I never met Ken, but I trained at the Lion’s Den CT branch for a little bit.
He was always my favorite fighter in the early UFC’s. He was on a real tear as well before leaving to join the WWF. The entire Lions Den was pretty dominant around that time until Tito returned and did his thing.
Lately I’ve been thinking about the possibility of anti-aging drugs suddenly hitting the market out of no where like AI. Imagine putting all the old school fighters back in their young bodies. I bet the new generation would be in trouble dealing with all that experience.
The pioneering fighters were in some ways cut from a different cloth.
NHB/MMA wasn’t really a true “pro-athlete” career at the time. Many of them just did it because it was in their nature, and they were hard men to begin with.
Ken is one example.
For the early to mid 90s, he was largely ahead of the curve. And his strength/physicality put him over the edge.
Later in his career when he really focused on “catching up”, we saw glimpses of a very experienced and and technical modern fighter. The way he drilled wall escapes for the first Tito fight was very evident vs a peak Tito. He didn’t win, obviously (he was very broken down by then and fought with a torn ACL) – but the techniques actually did work vs a Tito with a very strong top game – to the point where Ken was able to escape to his feet and twice and end the fight on his feet.
Add in his punching power and “brawlability”, with excellent takedown defense, an underrated clinch, and legit subs with high level leg submissions (plus a couple uncommon slick moves) and all the in-between stuff he was working on with Paulson…
Hell, Ken even added high kicks, which is kind of ironically funny because they came at a time after he had lost a lot of grappling mobility.
Most people don’t realize the extent of Ken’s injuries..
Yeah.
Put Ken’s mid 90s body, with Ken’s mid 00’s ability – and you have a fucking handful of a fighter for sure!
To this day I firmly believe that 90s Ken wipes the floor with any version of Tito.
I have yet to see an argument that convinces me otherwise – because there isn’t one.
Plus whatever happened to the Lions Den? He should have had a Lions Den in every state across the county just as Coleman should have had a Hammer House in every one .. but they didn’t and I don’t understand why? They were both huge names of the sport back then and had a great team of fighters
I don’t know how much of it i’d believe though as Ken is full of shit - he still can’t give Royce credit for beating him straight up in ufc 1. Then the weird excuses for the Severn fight in Detroit
He has given Royce credit for that, multiple times, including right after the fight.
There was nothing weird about the excuse. It was a factual account of events that happened. Severn wasn’t exactly aggressive in that fight himself. Both guys deserve criticism for it.
If you just look at his pre-WWF career in the 90s, he absolutely achieved greatness. He was among the most dominant fighters of the era, and for a time arguably the best, or at the very least in the conversation.
If you look at his post-WWF career, it was absolutely a physical thing.
Injuries 100% derailed his career.
Sure there were other things going on. But as I said above, a lot of people don’t seem to realize the extent of Ken’s injuries.
I feel the concensus when he was at the top of the NHB world was that he fought to not lose when it counted the most. Then always tried to come up with some morale victory for a lackluster performance.
Oleg was my friend. Royce couldn’t submit me. Dropping out of the UFC 3 tournament. Never fighting Tank when he was his biggest public critic. That sort of thing.
Oh Ken would have loved to fight Tank, and I think everyone knows what the outcome would have been.
Pulling out of UFC 3 was bad move, especially in hindsight. I don’t know that Ken was expecting people iyn the Internet to use that against him decades later though. It was just a bad decision in the moment.
The criticism that Ken didn’t win a UFC tournament doesn’t really hold water with me. He beat guys what won UFC tournaments, and the KOP tournament he won was arguably more stacked than many of those early UFC tournaments. Sure he would have beat Howard, and IMO he should have. It I don’t think it takes away from his ability at the time.
Ken beat Oleg in the gym worse than he did in the octagon. Oleg locked himself in the bathroom for like an hour afterwards. I don’t know if it’s true or not, but some LD guys said Ken was coming down from ecstasy when he fought Oleg lol. Crazy if true.
The whole second Severn fight was bogus. Bullshit handshake rules about no striking with closed fists. No strikes on the ground. There was zero action until Severn broke the “rules” at the end of the fight.
The Guy Mezger/Jason Fairn no hair pulling fight was a handshake thing.
For the Shamrock/Severn “Dance” – Detroit court ruled that the event could take place only without headbutts and punches to the head. Fighters were told they could be arrested if they broke the rules.
Ken’s reasoning – that he was co-managing a group home for boys and being arrested could jeopardize that – is IMO a hell of a lot better than whatever reason Severn had for stalling.
In the end Severn broke the rules and Ken did not.
Anyone can have any opinion they want about Ken’s decision there.
But those are the events that occured.
It’s been well documented.
IMO it should have been changed to a NC.
Neither fighter deserved a “win” on their record after that debacle. But Severn sure as hell didn’t “beat” Ken Shamrock.
I think the best way for me to describe Ken and the UFC 3 tournament thing was that Ken hated losing more than he liked winning, and obsessed endlessly about revenge over Royce, in a very unhealthy way, to the point where he said it was causing problems for his wife and son, because he was unpleasant to be around.
He was so angry over losing to him and fanatical about getting that one back, that he could see no other possible outcome. When he was notified of Royce being out, he instantly had an emotional dump, and lost his motivation to fight. That night his mind was set on beating Royce in the final. Do I think he should have fought Howard anyways? Yes. I also think he would have beaten his ass.