Having heard last month that Ken Shamrock had signed a multi-fight deal with Pro-Elite, I have to admit that I got very excited. Although I sometimes get frustrated and annoyed at many athletes coming out of retirement to get back into the game again and end up embarrassing themselves etc, this is Ken Shamrock, a man who really is born to fight.

Ken Shamrock came to my attention in the mid 90’s watching old school UFC tapes and although he didn’t win any of the original UFC tournaments (losing in UFC 1 to Royce Gracie and pulling out of UFC 3 mid tournament due to injury), he was a fighter like no other. The look and intensity he had in his eyes made you instantly intrigued to see him fight. Combining that with natural athleticism and excellent all round skills, for his time, made him a crowd favourite almost immediately, even though nobody outside of Japan knew who he was!

Seeing Ken’s first UFC match against Pat Smith, an American Pro Kickboxer, and having him tied up in a heel hook in a matter of minutes blew me away. Although Shamrock lost to Royce Gracie in his next match, the rematch of Shamrock and Gracie at UFC 5 really showed the skill and true spirit of Ken Shamrock. Royce Gracie who had won three out of the four UFC tournaments he had entered (pulling out of UFC mid tournament due to exhaustion/injury) and Shamrock, paired off against each other in UFC’s first “Superfight”. Although the fight was not the most exciting, it surpassed the 30 minute time limit and the five minute over time period, which was actually unaired, as the UFC production team had never though it would go that far as no UFC match had surpassed the 15 minute mark before. Shamrock showed, his true skill, stamina and ability to learn from Gracie’s previous victories to score a stalemate and inflict large amounts of damage to arguably the most influence figure in MMA of all time.

After this fight Ken then became UFC champ beating Dan Severn, while competiting in Pancrease Hybrid Wrestling in Japan where he had many classic encounters, with such fighters as Bas Rutten (I have to admit my favourite submission of all time, is Shamrock’s knee bar on Bas Rutten )and Masakatsu Funaki . Ken had then taken time out of the MMA world and delved into the world of Pro Wrestling, then returning to MMA in 2000. This obviously wasn’t the same Shamrock we had seen in the past but the skill was still there which you could see in his loss against Rich Franklin, where he was close to having the former UFC champion in a modified heel hook.

After Ken’s losses to Tito Ortiz, I was glad to see him “retire” at the time, as I didn’t want to see one of my favourite fighters keep losing, especially as you could see how much he wanted to fight and to win! However, with Ken taking time out again and fighting “Buzz” Berry at Cage Rage 25 I have to say I’m happy to see him return, for a number of reasons. One, its Ken in the cage again and two, he stands a chance against Berry. Take nothing away from Berry, he’s a very good fighter but he is not currently in the same league as others in the UFC, which really gives Ken a big chance to make an impact here and a chance to show the UK crowd that Ken Shamrock can compete in MMA, but maybe at a lower level.

With Ken’s Pro-Elite deal and a win over Berry could set up Ken with a big fight in a number of Pro-Elite’s networked promotions, with rumours of a Shamrock vs Kimbo Slice match on the cards. Which I see as very exciting! Ken certainly would last longer than Tank, and I think give Kimbo a huge test, as the guy hasn’t been past round 1 yet and is untested on the floor.

Although we may never see “The World’s Most Dangerous Man” in the UFC again, we will see him in other promotions fighting up and coming stars and poster boys and maybe we’ll see glimpses of Shamrock which made us love him the first place!!!

I hope you have enjoyed reading and I look forward to blogging again soon!!

Sensei Huntley

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