I’m with you in wanting more context on what happened with Schultz, Severn and Shamrock ..
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I was thinking about doing an essay for my Pancrase books on all the various ways fights could be worked, but I cut it lol. There are just so many ways. I don’t have specific names for them but a few main examples:
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Fights where both guys go in knowing the outcome is predetermined. Typically, the stronger fighter is scheduled to win. An example IMO is Funaki vs Fuke 1 (4/94).
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Fights where one guy (a dominant fighter who is a heavy favorite) goes in to win, but purposely slacks off in the fight to let his opponent look good (in order to give him ring experience, get him over with the fans, create new stars, etc). An example IMO is Funaki vs Frank Shamrock 1 (3/95).
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Fights where one guy (a dominant fighter who is a heavy favorite) goes in to purposely lose, to let his opponent look good (in order to give him ring experience, get him over with the fans, create new stars, etc). An example IMO is Funaki vs Frank Shamrock 2 (11/95).
There are tons of other ways to work fights, though. You could have fighters traveling to Japan, knowing theyre fighting, but not knowing who (while the opponent knows theyre fighting). You could screw with someone’s per diem while theyre in another country. The ref can make seemingly biased calls against one fighter. The promoter can ask a fighter (who is a dominant striker) to lay off the strikes and pressure them to mainly grapple. Etc.
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I do love the classic, stronger guy tryna give hope spots to the new guy, and accidently getting caught in a sub. 
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Funaki vs DeLucia 1 (7/94) would IMO be a rare example of that (at least, from Pancrase). But it didn’t seem unheard of for Funaki or Suzuki to blatantly let someone sub them on the way to making sure they still win the fight. Check out the RNC Greg Smit gets on Funaki in his debut (5/94). Funaki really showcases Smit in that one. Then watch the rematch in 6/95 when Funaki seems to have more of a “sink or swim” attitude towards Smit.
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Ken has always mentioned this when asked about the second Severn fight. I can see where people see this as a far fetched excuse, but if you consider the era and Ken’s position at the time it’s really not that impossible to believe. Ken is also known for sticking to a decision once his mind is made up on something even if everyone else is against the idea. Case in point, look at UFC 3. No disrespect to Harold Howard, but Ken essentially just has to show up in the finals of that one and is the tournament champion with a $60,000 dollar check. At the insistence of his dad and entire team to go in and take that win, he holds true to his belief and decision not to fight because he was there for Royce and Royce alone. Right or wrong Ken believes that is what set up the superfight with Royce at UFC V and it would not have happened otherwise. Bottom line here, Ken makes a decision to do something and that’s the way it is. Not out of the realm of possibility that he had these potential legal and reputation concerns about breaking the rules heading into this fight and was going to see it through sticking to his beliefs.
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I think Mike was trying to say that Mark Schultz was aware of an agreement between Ken & Dan prior to essentially not fight if Mark were to receive equal pay as the two of them? Hopefully Mike will clear this up.
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100%
I also think that in hindsight it’s easy for people to criticize everything as part of a legacy.
But for Ken experiencing these things in real time, he probably wasn’t thinking about his decisions in terms of people on the Internet scrutinizing everything 30 years later.
In his mind he was already a successful fighter and Pancrase champion, and probably felt he had a lot more fights to go.
There’s people who’s big criticism of Ken is that he didn’t win a UFC tournament – even though he beat and was clearly better than guys who did – and that format was short lived. But it’s all in how one chooses to frame things.
I don’t agree with his decision, but you’re right that he seemed to be a stubborn dude once he set his mind to something.
We also now know a little bit more about his personal life and how crazy it was, so it’s difficult to imagine his perspective of things.
ken really didnt seem to wanna fight more than once a night after ufc 1
Well the first KOP tournament he fought 4 times in 2 days.
Sorry
Family and work obligations
Prior to recording the last Schultz interview he confirmed with me that both Severn and Shamrock were pissed that he was getting equal pay
I am fairly sure that he also repeated what he said in the recorded interview
So they made a boring fight as protest?
Did he actually say that part?
I Noticed
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In essence
The argument of - it was illegal to punch
Is not really applicable when you look at the rest of the card
- every fight prior to them beat the shit out of each other, except thee last fight
Severn confirmed with Shultz that they intentionally held back as a form of protesting about their pay
I guess Don Frye did not get the memo that night when he proceeded to put on that historic and violent beating of Amaury Bitetti while they decided to do that Main Event staredown lol
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I addressed that.
And Severn threw punches.
That’s crazy.
Still doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.
Why would they risk a loss in what was a rivalry by putting an uneventful fight in the hands of the judges?
Not to mention it was for the Superfight belt..
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sounds to me like ken agreed to not punch
severn may have agreed to, but when he finally got top position, he punched plenty
perhaps he went against his word to steal the win
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Man, I kinda want to interview Dan. There’s a lot of good shit he’s never been asked AFAIK.
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There’s a part of one of Kens books where he talks about this.
He was on a plane with IIRC Art Davies, and asked him if he thought the decision was fair.
Davies though about it and said something like “yes, because he landed more punches”.
Then Ken responded with "but punches were illegal".
That being said – once Severn broke the agreement with punches to the head – wouldn’t Ken have done the same?
For the record, I’m not trying to throw shade on what @MMAHistoryPodcast has said here.
Again… I wasn’t there behind the scenes, so I can’t confidently make assertions about what did or didn’t happen.
So hopefully everyone knows that all my questions/comments are coming from a place of hespect.
This one just seems a little off to me.
Like is Shultz’ comment meant to be considered the final word?
Not calling anyone a liar…
But it’s just weird.
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