Royce Gracie doesn’t believe that it was a low blow led to the end of his Bellator 149 bout with Ken Shamrock.
Ken Shamrock was not happy in the aftermath of his Bellator 149 headlining bout with Royce Gracie. Gracie appeared to catch him with a low blow, which compromised Shamrock and led to the end of the fight. Shamrock complained loudly to both the referee and to Gracie, but it didn’t get him anywhere.
At the post-fight press conference, Gracie stated that he didn’t actually land an illegal blow:
“I’m very happy, that was my first knockout. But, I was telling Ken, we come from an era where there was no time limit, no weight division, no gloves, no rules, groin shots were allowed. But it did not catch his groin.”
It was Gracie’s first win in over nine years, and appeared to have ended a rivalry that stretched all the way back to UFC 1 in 1993. But given the controversial ending, could we see a fourth bout between the two? Gracie sort of evaded the question when asked about it:
“My father did not make fighters,” he said. “He taught us how to teach, not how to fight. We fight to prove that our style is the best. It’s up to Scott Coker. I thought I was out, and he pulled me back in.”
And thus ends another chapter in Bellator’s quirky senior’s division matchmaking.