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Ken Shamrock

How did you get involved in fighting to begin with? I was doing some pro-wrestling down in North Carolina back in 1989-1990. A friend of mine, Dean Malenko, brought me these tapes of Mixed Martial Arts in Japan. That was interesting stuff to me. Prior to that, I was a bouncer. I would get into fights and have to go to jail and pay a fine to get out. This offered me the opportunity to do the things that I was getting in trouble for. So, I went to Tampa, Florida and tried out. Three months later, I went to Japan and won my first fight. I didn't have a lot of experience, but I'd always been a fighter. After that, everything just kinda lined up for me."

You had a tough life growing up. Tell us about that. At 10 years old, I had gotten into a lot of trouble. I originally came from a predominantly black neighborhood in Atlanta, Georgia. My brothers and I were the only white kids in school. I got in a lot of fights. Then, I moved to Napa Valley (California) and I had a southern accent, so I didn't fit in with the white kids there and I got in more fights. At 14, I ended up in the Shamrock Boys Home. After that, I started to understand how to take my anger and put it into something positive like football, baseball, basketball, wrestling. I learned about doing things by the rules. If you lose your temper and do something wrong and get penalized for it, the whole team pays for it. He [Bob Shamrock] showed me the same thing happens in life. If I go out there and steal a car, I'm not the only one that suffers. My family suffers, my brothers suffer. So, I kinda learned discipline through sports. When I was younger, I used to fight a lot. As I grew older though, I got more disciplined. There's a place for fighting. You don't do it on the street. People get hurt. The biggest thing I learned is that your job stays in the ring and your life stays in life. There are two different characters. You don't mix those two together."

The Lion’s Den:

The Lion's Den started when Ken was fighting for the Pancrase organization in Japan. The organization wanted him to train fighters in the US so they could bring in more fighters from the states. In trying to come up with a name for it, he recalled a documentary he saw about lions. It showed how a group of lions hunt and worked together. He felt his group of fighters should work the same way and be like a family, so he chose to name his gym the Lion's Den. "And I'm still the King Lion," says Shamrock.

Ken was a pro-wrestler in the WWF from 1997 to 2000.
"I just wanted to do something else. It wasn't because of the money, I just wanted a change. It definitely helped me build a bigger fan base. But, I got tired of going on the road all the time."

Ken was the first ever King of Pancrase. Pancrase is an organization in Japan that was similar to the UFC but with more rules. Shamrock’s record in Pancrase from 1993 to 1996 was 17-4-0.

As a teenager in wrestling, Ken once broke his neck when he slipped on the mat attempting a throw.
Doctors told him he would never play sports again, but he proved them wrong.