Ken Shamrock: Encyclopedia II - Ken Shamrock - Career

Ken Shamrock - Career

Shamrock had started as a professional wrestler in small promotions in the Carolinas, being managed by Paul Jones, and from there he went to Japan, namely the Japanese UWF and its successor promotions, Fujiwara Gumi and Pancrase.

Back in the States, Shamrock first appeared in UFC 1 in November of 1993 where he progressed to the semi-finals—losing to eventual tournament winner, Royce Gracie. After UFC 1, Ken Shamrock vowed to avenge his loss to Royce Gracie. However, it would be nearly a year and a half later before he would get his chance. At UFC 5 in May of 1995, Shamrock and Gracie squared off in the UFC's first ever "Superfight." The Superfight was supposed to be historic match that finally showed if Gracie's win over Shamrock at UFC 1 was a fluke, or if Gracie was as great as he appeared. Unfortunately, the match did not live up to expectatoins. At UFC 5, for the first time, the UFC had instituted time limits. Shamrock and Gracie fought for the entire allotted time of 30 minutes along with 5 minutes of overtime before the match was declared a draw. While purist fans of mixed martial arts consider the match to be a true classic, most thought the match was rather boring, lacking sufficent offense by either Shamrock or Gracie. While many people (including Shamrock) have wanted to see a rematch ever since, Shamrock and Gracie have never again face each other in the octagon. Shamrock would go on to fight in further UFC Superfights against Dan Severn (where he wore his infamous lavender speedos), Oleg Taktarov and Kimo Leopoldo.

As of 2005, Ken is still making occasional appearances in UFC, giving him the distinction of the longest fighting UFC fighter to date. He is one of the pioneers of Mixed Martial Arts. Shamrock is noted for his involvement in the Lion's Den, a group dedicated to the training of mixed martial arts fighters. Many Lion's Den fighters such as Pete Williams, Jerry Bolander, and Tra Telligman have achieved a modicum of success in mixed martial arts.

Shamrock's Lions Den also feuded with former UFC LHW champion, Tito Ortiz. Tito would go on a streak beating Lions Den fighters Jerry Bolander and Guy Mezger, eventually facing Shamrock in one of the greatest selling MMA PPV's of all time in the United States - UFC 40, Vendetta. Tito would beat Ken, but although Shamrock lost—his brave effort was noted by the MMA community.

During his time in the WWF, he was billed as "The World's Most Dangerous Man." Shamrock invented the Ankle Lock submission hold, one used very frequently by Kurt Angle. His fantastic display of technical wrestling amazed fans and even earned him a WWF title shot which he missed out on thanks to Triple H. After defeating The Rock in the finals of the 1998 King of the Ring, his popularity grew, and he set his sights on the WWF Intercontinental Championship. After many memorable bouts with and without the belt, Shamrock, to the disbelief of the WWF fans, joined Vince McMahon's Corporation faction as a heel. His WWF character was never the same after that drastic change, so he decided to go back to his roots of UFC.

Shamrock was a part of the first few Total Nonstop Action Wrestling Pay Per Views, and even won the NWA World Heavyweight Championship. He left the company after a few months of service, however he later reappeared when the company debuted their Impact TV show. Once again this was short lived and he left the company a month after re-joining.

April 9, 2005, proved to be a turning point in Shamrock's career and future in mixed martial arts. Main event, the first ever UFC appearance on basic cable TV, on the popular reality series The Ultimate Fighter finale, Shamrock faced rising star Rich Franklin in a light heavyweight bout. Although Shamrock possessed a much deeper level of experience, he was soundly defeated by a TKO decision in the first round, thus instantly establishing Franklin as a legitimate threat to other UFC competitors.

In a post match interview, Shamrock indicated that he was unsure of his future in the UFC or MMA in general.

On October 24, 2005 Shamrock lost to fellow MMA legend Kazushi "The Gracie Hunter" Sakuraba in PRIDE: Fully Loaded by TKO. The decision to stop the fight was considered controversial by some parties, including Ken himself, since he was able to bounce up off the canvas right after being knocked down. However, Ken turned his back to Sakuraba and because he wasn't intelligently defending himself, the referee stopped the fight. His own brother Frank Shamrock commented the stoppage like this in an interview with the site Sherdog.com: "…if you’re sleeping with your head through the second rope, you’re in a bad way. He got clocked. He went down. According to the rules he was no longer defending himself and that’s the end of the fight. Was it early? Sure it was early. But was he getting his ass kicked? Yeah. It just depends on how you want to look at it. I tried to look at it abstractly and I saw a guy sleeping with his head through the second rope. That’s not good, because if I’m there, please somebody stop this."

On November 19, 2005 at UFC 56, Dana White, UFC president, announced that Ken would be one of the coaches (along with Tito Ortiz) for the upcoming third season of the reality show "The Ultimate Fighter."

He appeared in the films Champions, Virtuosity, and Scarecrow Gone Wild.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Career", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki