Ken Shamrock

[Grimmas]

Discuss here.

[El-P]

He's in the ZONE !

 

Thanks for nothing about the ankle lock BTW. I could have lived without this shit in US wrestling, although he was better at it than Angle who just grabbed a feet and turned it sideways most of the time. (not understanding Kurt Angle in 2015...)

[Phil Schneider]

He was really great in PWFG, but that was only maybe a half a dozen matches. Don't remember his WWF stint being much

[goc]

I struggle to think of any good Shamrock matches in WWF. He had a memorable feud with The Rock and a seemingly never ending feud with Billy Gunn, then the team with Bossman but I can't remember anything standing out. Other than his ability to get IN THE ZONE and take really hard chairshots to the head.

[WingedEagle]

I liked the Vader match quite a bit at the time. Had he not ended up working like everyone else on the roster this would be a very interesting discussion. As it was, no.

[Jingus]

He was mostly stuck in two-minute-specials during the Attitude era, which cut way down on what he was able to do out there. Which is sad, because I thought Shamrock was the polar opposite of Sakuraba: a shitty shootfighter, but a pretty fun rassler. I don't remember ever seeing Undertaker sell harder for anyone else's offense than in their match together at Backlash 99. His feud with Owen was really neat, especially the "lion's den" match at Summerslam. Shamrock was much better than average at putting on interesting performances in odd locations, everywhere from weird miniature pseudo-octagonal cages to inside a circle of parked cars to inside the Dungeon at the Hart house. And aside from Taz, he was really the first guy to popularize modern MMA elements in professional wrestling. We can certainly thank him for getting over the concept of "tapping out" in the first place.

[Phil Schneider]

Here is Shamrock v. Sano if you want to see him in a great match

 

[Phil Schneider]

Here is my SC review of that match

 

Wayne Shamrock v. Naoki Sano

I was pretty much in shock during this match, I couldn't believe what I was watching. I have never particularly cared for a thing Ken Shamrock has ever done, so I expected nothing out of this match, and it turned out to be as good as anything on the 80's Other Japan set. So much to love about this match, as they pretty much went back and forth from spectacular mat exchanges into awesome slugfest strike exchanges, great takedowns, into more spectacular mat exchanges.

The pacing of this was great, I especially loved how they paced their mat highspots. One guy would get in position and struggle a bit, and their would be a lull, and then super fast move into a choke or a kneebar. The crowd would pop huge for all of the mat spots, and it was the pacing of them which would really do it. Then after the mat near falls they would stand and just lay into each other with big shots, Shamrock's strikes looked way better here then in the previous match, and Sano was drilling him too. This was before Sano went to UWFI so I would guess this was his first shootstyle match ever, and he was a master of it. This was Sano's match, and while Shamrock was game, you could tell Sano was leading him. I also loved how Sano mixed in pro moves, as I actually bought an STF as a shoot submission, and a DDT as a shoot throw. I have never heard anyone even mention this match before and it is a total hidden classic.

[GOTNW]

The Owen Hart Dungeon match was amazing but other than that his pro style work was completely lackluster and uneventful.

[El-P]

That Sano match was indeed really good, although it went a bit long. It peaked around 18-19, and the following minutes seemed just too much, although they brought it up back for a hot finish. Shamrock looked better there than he ever did during his WWF comeback. And it's crazy to think how good Sano was at that game. I believe it was an interpromotional match between PWFG and SWS, as you can see Takano in Sano's corner. Sano busting out a DDT and going straight into an STF later on was cool. He's the first Battlarts worker, kinda. (ok, not true, Tiger Mask was doing lots of pro-wrestling shit in UWF anyway, as were Takada and Maeda)

 

Totally forgot about the Owen's matches, which were Shamrock's highlights in the WWF, and Owen's last notable matches too. I have somewhat of a fondness for Shamrock because he reminds me of my favourite era in watching WWF (97/first half of 98), but he's just not a very good worker. And I was always kinda distracted by the fact he looks like a hugely buffed up version of French comedian Elie Seimoun.

[ohtani's jacket]

I also remember liking the Vader match. The Owen matches are good, and I even remember some decent stuff around the time he was IC level feuding with Val Venis and the like. In fact, I don't remember him really being bad. His career just stalled after Michaels buried him.

[Childs]

One of my favorite Loss theories is that Shamrock was meant to be "The Man" in one of the U.S. big two in some alternate reality. Anyhow, he wasn't far from a path that might have led to greatness as a wrestler. He possessed a lot of the elements. He just went a different way.

[concrete1992]

Do we consider his Bellator career for this?

[Rah]

Kimbo/Shamrock is a surefire way to get him up your ranking, if so.

[InYourCase]

Wish I could find a spot for Shamrock, even if it was a total vanity pick, but I don't think it's going to happen. Besides Rey and maybe Benoit, he's my person favorite WWE/WWF worker ever. Something about him in that environment is just great to me. Love the Vader match and his stuff with The Rock, while it's very "WWE-ish", is very good.

 

He looks amazing in this Bret match. Some wicked worked punches are thrown. Love it.

[elliott]

On 10/19/2015 at 11:42 AM, Childs said:

One of my favorite Loss theories is that Shamrock was meant to be "The Man" in one of the U.S. big two in some alternate reality. Anyhow, he wasn't far from a path that might have led to greatness as a wrestler. He possessed a lot of the elements. He just went a different way.

 

Sorry to quote from almost a decade ago, but I thought this was really interesting. It was actually similar to my reaction when watching Don Frye recently. In that alternate reality where Shamrock was The Man, then Frye was the #1 Heel. There are probably enough quality matches to make a sweet couple hour playlist but I'm not sure there's a lot of depth. Big fan of his matches with Sano, Vader & Owen though. 

[MLB]

It's crazy in spite of his debut as guest referee for Bret/Austin at WM13 that Ken didn't get a match with either guy. And we didn't get a program with Angle that could've been great. They should've pushed Ken more.    

[fxnj]

I've become a big fan of Shamrock's pre-WWE work. One of the most insanely gifted athletes I've seen in any sport. When he's been involved in some of the greatest matches ever vs. Sano and Suzuki, I'm not sweating that he doesn't have hundreds of *** matches to his name.

Anyway, here's a match I came across a few months ago from 1990 in Lou Thesz's promotion where he does really well doing 50's style matwork.