Tag: Ken Shamrock

A little more than a month ago, my colleague Jonathan Snowden and I visited Ken Shamrock in San Diego.

Jonathan was there to work on a story about Shamrock’s preparations for his bout with Kimbo Slice. I was there mostly because I was curious. We’d heard he was living in a motorhome behind a gym (by choice, not because of monetary issues), and I guess I wanted to see it for myself.

Because if the idea of Shamrock facing Slice struck you as a little bit ridiculous—and it probably did, and it’s OK if that’s the case—then the notion of one of MMA‘s living legends living a spartan existence with no running water while preparing for a fight against a man most famous for his backyard brawls on YouTube?

Let’s just say that I had to see it to believe it.

We attended a San Diego Padres game with Shamrock and his family. The thing that stuck with me from that day was this: Ken Shamrock is 51 years old, and he is in better shape than I’ll ever be. He isn’t just in great shape for a 51-year-old; he’s in great shape for a person, period. For a human.

Shamrock is 51 years old, and he is doing things men half his age don’t do. And that’s amazing.

But what he shouldn’t be doing is fighting. Not anymore.

Shamrock vs. Slice—the fight we all allegedly waited seven years for—is in the books. It was the perfect endcap to a night of spectacle and ridiculousness, which Bellator (under Scott Coker) is beginning to specialize in. Shamrock, escorted to the cage by the remaining living member of the Legion of Doom, milked every bit of the pro wrestling drama he learned during his days with Vince McMahon’s circus troupe.

And, in the end, the fight resembled a well-booked pro wrestling match. Shamrock started out grappling, taking Slice down easily. He secured a rear-naked choke, of sorts; it looked more like a sleeper hold of pro wrestling fame than an actual rear-naked choke, which begs the question: Did Shamrock, after decades of grappling, forget how to execute a submission hold on a man who is absolutely hapless in the grappling department?

For a few fleeting seconds, it looked like Shamrock would actually get the job done. Slice nearly tapped, or at least appeared to be on the verge of doing so. Announcer Jimmy Smith even screamed that Slice was out, only for Slice to immediately demonstrate that he was not, in fact, out.

And then Slice fought out of the rear-naked choke, stood on his feet and punched Shamrock in the face. And Shamrock, because he is 51 years old and has a chin long past the point of expiration, crumbled immediately.

It was the end, mercifully. Nobody was hurt, and that’s a win.

And we can only hope it was truly the end, though something tells me it won’t be.

Shamrock has been knocked out eight times over the past decade, first by Rich Franklin back in 2005. He has been knocked out by Tito Ortiz and Kazushi Sakuraba and Robert Berry and Mike Bourke and, at some point along the way, his chin vanished. It is gone.

But that is to be expected from a 51-year-old man who has spent a lifetime in combat sports.

There is no shame in it. Fifty-one-year-old men don’t fight each other in cages; 51-year-old men train others to fight in cages, or they play with their children and grandchildren.

And so here’s to hoping Shamrock, legend that he is, finds his way out of the cage for the last time and settles into something a little less violent.

He is deserving of that role, and it’s difficult to imagine him not finding such a place, if only he’ll take a step back to a place where punches are not being thrown.

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There’s a unique appeal to MMA. For all the aims of streamlining clothing suppliers and eliminating unseemly sponsors that the UFC has, the sport is bigger than just their aspirations, and it catches eyes for reasons beyond them.

One major way that the sport catches eyes is the freakshow fight, the fistic equivalent of watching a man swallow a flaming sword at the county fair. There was a time when the sport embraced the freakshow with more regularity—there may even be an argument that the entire sport in North America was born out of the concept of a freakshow tournament—but it’s grown infrequent in recent years.

Sure, the UFC offered up Anderson Silva and Nick Diaz this year, but that was more fun than freakish. Prior to that bout, the last UFC freakshow was probably Randy Couture’s destruction of James Toney at UFC 118.

In the present age of MMA, where FOX Sports largely rules the day and promotions outside of the UFC have been smothered into irrelevancy, a good freakshow is hard to come by.

Or at least it was, until now.

Bellator 138 will see the first proper freakshow fight in years on Friday night, when 51-year-old veteran of UFC 1 Ken Shamrock will enter the cage against 41-year-old YouTube sensation and veteran porn security kingpin Kimbo Slice.

Neither man has had an MMA bout since 2010. The world has been waiting that long to see them return. That’s a tongue-in-cheek proclamation, but only slightly. There’s an odd appeal to each guy, a charisma sadly lacking in the vast majority of the sport these days.

Shamrock is an absurdity even by fight game standards, stomping around promising to beat grown men into “a living death” while operating training camp for his triumphant return from the confines of a motor home parked at a mini-mall.

In the time since the world last saw him, he kind of reunited with his estranged half-brother, signed on for a pikey boxing match, found God and circled back to MMA by signing with Bellator. This return bout is a rebooking of a fight that was called off in 2008 due to an injury on the eve of an EliteXC event, an injury that essentially sunk that promotion outright.

And the return comes against Slice, whom Shamrock hates with an enthusiasm usually reserved for religious zealots and hungry animals closing out a hunt. His story has been told so many times it’s become lore: He was the baddest dude on the streets of Florida, beating up men in backyards for years until someone started to tape him doing it. He proved he was good enough at it to make it in MMA to the tune of a 4-2 record, and pro boxing at 7-0.

This is, putting it mildly, the exact type of fight that MMA needs.

Too often now the sport is obsessed with rankings and the thrust for a title shot or a title itself, largely due to the fact that UFC holds such a sizable chunk of the market share and legitimacy is increasingly becoming their game.

Bellator, under the shrewd guidance of former Strikeforce boss Scott Coker, is actively going in a different direction. Accepting the occasional carnival showcase and the appeal that such a showcase has with fans, Coker is looking to get as many eyes as he can with fun fights in hopes of those eyes seeing the legitimate talent he has in the fold as well.

It’s a brilliant strategy, but one that’s built on a simple premise unique to MMA: Freakshows sell.

No other sport can claim that as a time-tested, proven reality. It would be difficult to get people to pay $60 to watch the retirees of the 1999 St. Louis Rams play some second-tier English rugby club in a game of soccer, or to see if John McEnroe could beat Mike Tyson in a game of frisbee golf.

Such offerings are simply too absurd. People who are fans of those sports are not attracted to such insanity.

However, MMA is that insanity. It was founded as that insanity; it evolved with that insanity; it continues to be that insanity.

Ignoring that fact borders on insulting to the fans and athletes who’ve been around since the beginning, while embracing it, even occasionally as Bellator is doing this weekend and has done in the past, serves as a license to print money.

Mixed martial arts is not mainstream. It never will be. One of the biggest benefits of that reality is the capacity to book a total circus attraction as a main event, then sit back smoking a cigar and counting the Benjamins that reward such ingenuity.

Kimbo Slice vs. Ken Shamrock is one such circus attraction, one such freakshow. The appeal is undeniable, and the benefit is all Bellator’s to reap.

 

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The moment has finally arrived. After seven years of waiting (and one dead fight promotion), Kimbo Slice and Ken Shamrock will finally step in the cage on Friday night.

Slice and Shamrock are older men now, and neither has competed in mixed martial arts in quite some time. For Slice, it has been just over five years since a loss to Matt Mitrione sent him packing from the UFC; for Shamrock, it will be five years in November.

Both men are long past their primes, and there is every chance the fight will be absolutely awful.

And still, we are beyond excited for what may ultimately (and improbably) be the biggest fight of 2015, at least from a viewership perspective.

To discuss all things Slice vs. Shamrock, our intrepid duo of Jeremy Botter and Jonathan Snowden—Bleacher Report’s version of Cagney and Lacey—teamed up to answer The Question: Is Kimbo Slice vs. Ken Shamrock the biggest mixed martial arts fight of 2015?

Jeremy: Jonathan, you were able to spend a little time with Shamrock in San Diego last month, and I tagged along. During that time, we spoke of our excitement for this fight, but we also talked about how smart a play it is for Bellator. This is a promotion that must do something to be different. It can’t be UFC Light, because UFC is already doing a great job at watering down its own product.

Bellator has to do things differently. It has to attract attention somehow, and then hope to turn those eyeballs toward some of the more talented fighters it has on its roster. Millions of people tuned in to see Tito Ortiz vs. Stephan Bonnar, and they were exposed to Will Brooks in the process.

I am convinced that Scott Coker has hit a winning formula here. Kimbo and Ken are old men. This fight will probably be horrible. But I have to say that I don’t care one bit, and I think this fight has the ability to attract a mainstream crowd like no other fight on the docket this year. I have friends who never watch MMA, and they are excited for Slice/Shamrock. If they are any indication, this is going to be a massive viewing audience for Spike on Friday night.

 

Jonathan: Scott Coker is kind of the anti-Dana White. Most of the time, when you talk to him, he barely changes expression. He’s the type of guy whose heart rate never gets above 80 beats per minute. The next time he calls somebody names in public will be the first.

But, Jeremy, I swear on the almighty Fedor Emelianenko himself—when I sat down with Coker at the last Bellator event he seemed genuinely excited by this fight.

Coker calls it a “fun fight,” the term he’s devised to replace “freakshow” in the MMA lexicon. It’s also something more.

This is a true grudge match, the kind you hear about often but witness rarely. When you look Shamrock in the eye, you can see this is personal to him. Sure, he has all of his pro wrestling tricks working. But they are working in service of something real.

In the cage, no one will mistake this for top-level MMA. But while the two men may be a combined 92.7 years old, they are evenly matched. That’s the difference between being sad and being interesting.

This one is interesting. Despite the Kimbo friendly odds, I think it’s a pick-em fight.

Jeremy: I think you’re right. When I saw Kimbo opened up as a -405 favorite with oddsmakers, I was shocked. But then, I also had the opportunity to see Ken’s Padres jersey barely containing his massive, rippling biceps when you and I went to a baseball game with him a month ago. Clearly, the man is in fantastic shape, and not just for someone who is 51 years old; he is in fantastic shape, period.

There are people out there who will pretend this fight is embarrassing, because they think they’re some sort of purist and that this kind of fight is beneath them. You know the type. We all do.

But if you consider yourself a purist, answer me this question: Would you rather watch Ken Shamrock and Kimbo Slice do their thing on free cable? Or are you happier watching two men you’ve never heard of on a Fight Pass stream?

Even if someone answers “Fight Pass,” you just know they’re going to be tuning in on Friday night. They might not admit it, but they’ll be watching alongside the rest of us, because at the end of the day, we are all marks.

Jonathan: Like you, I love the spectacle and the ridiculous pomp and circumstance. Everyone who’s been to one of their live quarterly extravaganzas raves about these Bellator tent-pole shows. It’s going to be an incredible event.

But, and call me crazy if you must, I’m also super intrigued by this as an athletic contest. I know neither of these guys is ever going to be a world champion—and that’s OK. What’s important here is that they are an appropriate level of competition for each other.

Shamrock vs. Slice, in many ways, is an old-school throwback, a return to a time when MMA was a battle of styles. Shamrock is the submission master. At lunch one day he told me all about why leg locks are the ultimate counter to the guard.

He still believes.

Kimbo is a street fighter, a hard puncher who has learned just enough in the gym to make it interesting. He can end Shamrock’s night with a single punch.

That’s exciting to me. Am I weird?

Jeremy: You’re not weird. I mean, you are weird. But not because you’re excited for this fight.

I was also perversely excited for Tito vs. Bonnar back in November. And I felt this way even though I knew—I just knew—it was going to be a terrible fight. And honestly, the odds of Shamrock and Kimbo going out there and putting on a fight of the year candidate? They’re pretty small. I think we can agree on that.

But still, I’m excited for the fight, because this is an evenly matched bout between two old people. And also because of what you mentioned: It is a battle of styles, a throwback of sorts to the old-school time when we’d see a jiu-jitsu master facing a boxer.

The fact that Shamrock was the guy participating in those style fights back then? Well, it makes it that much better!

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