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We recently had the chance to speak with MMA and pro wrestling legend Ken Shamrock, as he prepares to move into the next stage of his post-combat sports career. The 54-year-old has had a highly decorated tenure in both sports, and continues to serve as one of the most underrated performers of his era.
On MMA and pro wrestling being similar:
There’s a lot of it that does transcend each discipline. You could take all of those things from MMA, the punches and the throws, and put them into an entertaining match. You can put them into the pro wrestling style, and it works out really well.
On the most underrated tool in MMA:
There’s no doubt in my mind that it’s leg locks. I think leg locks are the actual defence to the guard, but because in the amateur events they won’t allow leg locks, which means that by the time you turn pro, nobody is using leg locks because they couldn’t use them before.
They’ve almost been excluded other than people who have stuck with it. When you wrap your legs around a person, that’s the inter-leg submission so that would take a lot of jiu jitsu’s power.
On how much the sport of MMA has changed:
You fought everybody that was put in front of you. You didn’t get to pick or choose, and sometimes you fought three guys in one night, so it wasn’t like you could pick your opponent. It seems like now that you’ve got these ranking systems, and all of these people who are supposed to be in line to fight so and so - a lot of the time it doesn’t make sense, even with the rankings.
On his pro wrestling career:
For me it was [all about] the crowd. Being able to put together great matches, and hearing the crowd pop on different moves that you do or the ending, that drives that ego inside of you to be great.
There were definitely times in pro wrestling where I got that thing I needed that would just give me that energy to want to be better. The majority of that was down to the fans. There’s not a better feeling than that.
On what inspires him in the present day:
Right now it’s being able to create business opportunities, and being able to build them into something profitable. I love entrepreneurialism, I love being able to grab things that most people aren’t seeing and be able to create some unique and popular.
That’s what my energy is going into, and in six months to a year, I truly believe we’ll have something out that is going to be old but new. It’s going to be huge.
On the biggest misconception about his legacy:
I don’t brag enough on a lot of the things that I did and helped to create. I think a lot of stuff has gone under the bridge because I don’t think different promoters want to push it. It just seems like whether it was the UFC or Pride or pro wrestling, there’s just a lot of things that I did.
For some reason nobody wants to talk about the things that I did to help build MMA.
On advice he’d give to people who are struggling:
The world that we live in is not going to do anything for you. You have to be the one to do something for you. Once you realise that and you take that first step into doing something, the rest of it is history.
But you’ve got to be able to tell yourself that. If you don’t, nobody else is going to.
What's your favourite Ken Shamrock memory? Let us know in the comments below.
