(Having completed the Jiu-Jitsu portion of his seminar, Shamrock ended things with a lecture about using an old beef bone to get a stew going. Photo via Wikimedia.)
Ken Shamrock’s downward spiral just won’t. fucking. end. The former UFC/WWF star, who has made headlines in recent years for accidentally beating up a woman in a shopping mall, begging strangers to call him for $11.99 a minute and getting bent over a barrel by the Zuffa legal team, has apparently moved on to phase 3.5 of his fighting career: outright extortion.
You see, Shamrock was expected to face Ian Freeman at an Ultimate Cage Fighting Championship event on July 27th. A few days ago, however, Shamrock pulled out of the fight and claimed that the promotion was trying to shortchange him, resulting in the fight being cancelled altogether. We know, sounds familiar, right? Only now, a pissed off Freeman is accusing Shamrock of cheating the promotion out of $5,000 and skipping town (original story here) — what’s known on Broadway as “pulling a Harold Hill.” Freeman vented on his Facebook page:
Well, everyone including myself, knew this fight was too good to be true as we know what a coward Shamrock is.
Not only is Shamrock a coward but he’s also a thief. He accepted the fight, demanded $5,000 upfront as a deposit of trust, of which was sent, and now refuses to return the money.
Not only has he demanded that money up front but also ask for his purse and ticket deal to be paid “before” he fights and this money to be sent to an American bank.
UCFC bent over backwards to stick to your Diva demands but you bitched about everything. Even to the fact that they were advertising your name to sell tickets. That’s what every show in the world does [you] dumb fuck. The fight was confirmed, and you signed and made a video signing the contract. Idiot.
While this seemed like a simple case of “he said, she said” at first, it wasn’t until we revisited an old interview with Chael Sonnen, of all people, that this case was blown wide open:
On how he feels about James Toney fighting Ken Shamrock:
“I can guarantee you that as sure as night follows day, that not only is that fight never gonna happen, it never was. Ken Shamrock is going around to all these different promoters doing his typical scumbag move getting money up front saying, “You know, I’m a Hall of Famer and I don’t even know if you guys are going to exist, so give me a ten grand signing bonus.”
He takes their money, goes and blades himself in the back, or whatever make believe thing that guy does, won’t show up – guaranteed he won’t show up – keeps their ten grand and goes on to the next unassuming promoter. He’s not gonna fight James Toney anymore than you are. He never was. That fight won’t happen, mark my words.”
We don’t know how to say this, but Chael Sonnen is starting to sound less like a schizophrenic WWE heel and more like a goddamn prophet these days. That interview is over two years old, yet has Shamrock’s current shtick pegged to a tee. The even more damning evidence? Shamrock’s response to the controversy and John Joe O’Regan’s subsequent takedown of “The World’s Most Dangerous Man.”
Shamrock: England, they don’t have a sanctioning body so that’s the reason why we’ve done this escrow, where they put the money into escrow. We know that when we get to England these contracts aren’t valid because there’s no sanctioning body.
So these contracts are not legal. So that’s why we did it that way, and now they’re – which we didn’t think they would do because it’s stupid business – but they’re trying to pull that now.
Writer’s Note: Shamrock is not correct here. Contracts/bout agreements are not illegal in the absence of a sanctioning body. They are still legally enforceable agreements between the parties, but would be enforced via the civil justice system in the UK via the small claims court. (Source: Writer is a law graduate)
So there you have it; Ken Shamrock has somehow managed to out-sleazeball Bob Sapp, who at least shows up to his contacted fights and takes some semblance of a beating before receiving his overly-inflated paycheck. And as with Sapp, the only way we are going to rid ourselves of the cancer Shamrock has become (Kencer?) is to stop enabling him. So we beg of you, small-time MMA promoters: DO NOT HIRE THIS FRAUD.
If our past few articles about Shamrock are any indication, this is the point where a couple of you jump up our asses about “disrespecting a legend” and start building strawmen in regards to what us writers have done with our lives that is so great. I can’t speak for everyone here, but I’m certain that I’ve never resorted to extortion as a way of earning income. Prostitution may be a dirty business, but at least it’s honest.
