(Video courtesy of YouTube/TheFightNetwork)
Ken Shamrock spoke Fight Network Radio recently and stated that he believes that if the UFC would look past their personal and legal issues and give him a rubbermatch with Royce Gracie at UFC Rio in August, they will sell out and set pay-per-view records much like his pair of fights with Tito Ortiz did.
“There’s no doubt in my mind, and anyone else will tell you that if this fight was to happen, this would be the biggest pay-per-view to date, but they will not let that happen. [The UFC] would have to swallow their egos for that to happen and these guys have too big of egos to let that happen,” he said. “I love to fight. I want to fight. I think staying within my capabilities of fighting people who were from my time…Trying to fight these young kids, obviously I’m a bit too old for that, but if I stay within my realm of things I think fans would enjoy it, I would enjoy it and I think it’s good for the sport.”
Although his chances of talking Dana White and company into signing the old school bout are slim-to-none, especially when Shamrock brings up that it likely won’t happen due to the UFC president’s huge ego. Still Ken is holding out hope that money talks.
“That fight, Royce Gracie-Ken Shamrock should happen. The fans want it, I want it, Royce wants it,Brazil wants it. The only problem with that is you have a bunch of people who have big egos who believe that the UFC created this whole thing when they absolutely did not,” he explained. “People like myself and Royce Gracie and [Mark] Coleman and many, many other people created this UFC phenomenon so’s that they can sit there and control it which is what they’re doing today, trying to control it for themselves. So they’re not gonna let that fight happen.”