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Ken Shamrock, a former WWE pro wrestler and UFC fighter, spoke to Makthavare.se about a host of issues including the Vince McMahon Netflix documentary, Jake Paul, Conor McGregor, Ronda Rousey, The Rock, and C.M. Punk.
•We don’t know if the Netflix doc told the truth about Vince McMahon
“I’ve been a part of supporting documentaries, and I’ve been a part of ones that were agenda [driven] and you were collateral. It’s hard to say which it is, because it’s not real. It’s produced, it’s cut up. They put in certain things to make it more exciting or friendly or abusive or destructive.
“There’s any way that they want to spin this they can, and we don’t know which one it is. And only Vince knows, and his family knows whether that was true or not. We don’t. That’s why it is frustrating for me when people see something and all of a sudden they say: ‘well that guy is an absolute jackass’ and you don’t know if that is even true. Since when do you believe everything that someone tells you? Especially when it’s agenda driven.
“No. I didn’t watch it, I don’t usually get into that because I don’t want to be persuaded by what I’m watching, because I know for a fact that it could be wrong. Or it could be, it could be true. There’s no reason why I want to watch it, unless it’s going to be something positive for me.”
•Jake Paul is brash and ridiculous and should not attempt WWE – but don’t hate on him
“I think it would be a mistake for Jake Paul to get into WWE. Go back to boxing. There are guys out there that are legitimate boxers that should be making the kind of money that Jake Paul is making. But business is business. Numbers do not lie.
“Jake’s making more or the same as a world championship boxing match. I’m not hating him or telling people, ‘Well, they shouldn’t be spending that kind of money on him,’ because the return is massive.
“And if the return is that massive, how are you putting the blame on him? He’s brash, he says things that sometimes, in my mind, are ridiculous. But that’s why he’s making money. That’s why he is who he is. Because he says these things, like saying that he could fight a top contender.
“Okay. Talk is cheap. You gotta go do it. I get it. He’s done everything else. He’s making money. But that’s why he is who he is. Don’t hate him. Figure out what he’s doing. Why is this guy that says things so ridiculous, why is he making all the money?
“He’s handpicking these guys, putting them in there, creating this massive draw on social media, and making huge money. I wouldn’t hate on that. I’d be going, ‘Bro, show me how to do it’.”
ARTICLE CONTINUED BELOW…
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•Conor McGregor needs to know the WWE is a different beast
“I don’t care how much character they have in baseball, in basketball, in MMA, wrestling is a different beast. It is a very much different beast. There’s a lot of give and take, and a lot of times there’s more give than there is take.
“You have to have that character to be able to understand that this is the way it works, and you’re not going to just walk in and dominate the circuit. Unless, of course, you have that ‘IT’ factor which is going to sell tickets or put asses in the seat.
“I know Conor has that in MMA, and if he could transition over that into wrestling that would be sweet, but you don’t know until it happens.
“A lot of that has to do with the mic. A lot has to do with your ability to do matches and make people believe what it is that you’re doing. And there’s a lot to it, and there’s no way of knowing that until you actually do it.”
•I don’t care Ronda Rousey thinks she could beat me… but it is ludicrous
“There is absolutely no way if you put me in the ring with Ronda Rousey, no matter what she says, that I’m not gonna dominate. It’s just, it’s ludicrous. Absolutely ludicrous for people to believe something like that.
“But again, I don’t mind it. I know when it was said way back when, I was 40-something years old, and I was benching 365 pounds 10 times, and she came out and said that and I never responded to it.
“I was like, ‘Yeah, whatever. I don’t care,’ like that doesn’t hurt me. There was a question of whether you think you can beat this, or you think you can handle this? Because she was at the top of her game. No question. She’s great.
“They mentioned it – ‘Can you do this? Can you do that? Could you beat Ken Shamrock if it was on the ground and no punching?’ Whatever, I don’t care; that doesn’t affect me. You’ve never heard me talk about it.”
•The Rock is a great human being – working with me pole-vaulted his career
“When they put The Rock and I together we clicked, there was no ego, there was no ‘I’m the guy’, it was more of like, ‘Okay, what can I do for you?’ and ‘How can we work to make this the best match of the night’ and he had the same mentality.
“Anybody that knows me and worked with me understands that it’s not anything about individuals. It’s more about accomplishments as a whole, and I think when me and Rock got together he had a lot of knowledge and understanding of pro wrestling because of his father and his whole family being involved in it, and I had a little bit of knowledge.
“But I had a whole lot more knowledge of stuff he didn’t understand, which was in the actual mixed martial arts world that we combined into these wrestling matches, which caused our matches to be so much different than anyone else’s. So we were able to do that.
“I worked well with him. I respected him. I think he’s at least from everything I know from him, he’s a great human being. I saw once he got the mic and he started talking. I was like ‘he’s special.’ This is special.
“I do believe that for him to be able to work with me and be able to put these matches on with the person that I was, I wasn’t just another wrestler I was a world champion beating people up and for him to be able to come in there and put on great matches and us work together, it absolutely pole vaulted him [in his career], but he did it.
“It wasn’t anything that I did other than us working together and putting on great matches, but The Rock is the one that put himself there. He grabbed that mic.
“Once he had the mic, he knew what to say. He knew how to act, and he put a full effort into it. He became great because he pushed himself there. Nobody else. Nobody gave it to him.”
•Awesome C.M. Punk took his chance in MMA and then rebuilt in WWE
“C.M. Punk. I became a big fan of his when he made the move into MMA, and I didn’t understand all the hate. If people truly understood the sacrifice that he made. I would say he took a big risk, because he was on top of the world. He was up there in wrestling.
“He had such love for the sport that he risked his career to go and find out whether or not he was capable of doing it. That to me isn’t about legacy, his credentials, or everything he’s accomplished, it’s about what he can accomplish.
“If he doesn’t step outside of his comfort zone to find out whether or not he can or can not – how will you ever know? I’ve heard so many people talking about how they would have gone into the UFC or MMA if they had the chance to but they just never did.
“I bet you any amount of money if you ask them if they wanted to do that now that their careers are over and wished they had taken the chance. At least find out because now they have to live with that. Not knowing if they could or could not have done it.
“C.M. Punk does know and took that chance and then he went back and rebuilt his career. I’m a huge fan of his just because of that one incident. We have different ideas of who Vince is. Maybe I haven’t been around enough to know that.
“But everything that I know and what I have seen, he’s been awesome.”
•I don’t think about WWE Hall of Fame snub
“I have no idea why I’m not in the WWE Hall of Fame, but it’s something that I don’t think about or worry about.
“I think if it does happen, then great and if it doesn’t then it would be sad, but I won’t hold it against any one. I’d love it to happen, but it’s not my call.”
•There are two WWE wrestlers I wish I had worked with
“I would not use the word regret (when it came to leaving WWE). I would have loved to have been around to have those matches, especially with Brock Lesnar and Kurt Angle. I think that would have been cool, but we all have journeys that we go on and those things you can’t change.
“It’s not like when I made those decisions that it was something I didn’t want to do. I wanted to do that, I wanted to go back into MMA because I missed it.
“When I went back it didn’t go as well as I wanted to but I still enjoyed it. I really, really wanted to know whether or not I could do it again.
“It’s kind of like that C.M. Punk thing. I could have stayed there, I could have just been satisfied. But no, I want to challenge myself. Just like anybody that has any kind of credibility is always going to challenge themselves to be better, and that’s what I did, and I don’t regret that.”
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