Ken Shamrock appeared on the most recent Insight With Chris Van Vliet episode, where he was asked why he did not compete in the Brawl for All tournament.
The tournament included shoot matches, in which wrestlers attempted to knock each other out for real. WWE held it in 1998, and Bart Gunn won, going on to face Butterbean at WrestleMania 15.
Gunn was knocked out quickly. The initial belief was that “Dr. Deat”h Steve Williams would have easily won it, only to backfire and derailed WWE’s big plans for him.
Shamrock replied, “Yes, I was asked. I said ‘No.’ Listen, I got paid big money, big, big money to fight [in the UFC]. So now they’re asking me to do this thing for free? Listen, I think anybody that has been involved in pro wrestling understands how hard it is to gain trust in the locker room. If guys don’t trust you, they’re not going to work for you. They’re not going to allow you to do things that they feel they may get hurt with.
So that was one of the things that Bret [Hart] really instilled in me was being able to make sure that I had a relationship with the locker room. I would go up and say hi to people, shake their hand, be open to suggestions, building relationships, because you got to build trust. These guys got to trust me to go in the ring with them, and then they asked me to fight. I’m like, so now I’m going to go in there and beat the hell out of these guys and then go back and say, ‘Hey, we’re going to do a pro wrestling match.’ I just felt like that was kind of going against the grain of what I was trying to do there. I guess they were paying, I don’t know how much it was, 50 grand or something if you won it? You guys asked me to come here and do a certain thing, and we negotiated a contract for that, and now you want me to actually fight? So I’m doing two things now, and I just felt like, ‘Yeah, this is not for me.’
I am not persuaded by insults and by ridicule, people saying, ‘You’re afraid to go against the pro wrestlers and you’re afraid to get in there, you’re afraid of this guy, you’re afraid of that guy.’ That does nothing. You’re not going to shame me into trying to fight somebody. I mean, if I’m going to fight them, I’m gonna fight them, and we’re gonna negotiate something, and we’ll do it. But I’m not gonna be shamed into fighting. It just felt like that’s what was trying to happen, not WWF, just the fan base, because they were pro wrestlers and they’re pro wrestling fans, and by me saying, ‘No, I didn’t want to do that. I’m not going to do that.’ There was that whole scene behind the scenes where people were saying, ‘Yeah, the Shamrock is afraid.’ I’m thinking to myself, ‘Wow, how soon people forget.’”
Shamrock was asked what would have happened had he confronted Butterbean. According to the former WWE superstar, he would have also lost.
Shamrock replied, “Oh, Butterbean would have knocked that piss out of me. I got no business boxing that dude…..that’s not my game…now, in a boxing match, because I don’t know how that was, but I don’t believe you could have taken him down. But with the way that we could take guys down. That’s a different game. That was my game.”
Shamrock believes he would have won an MMA fight against Butterbean.
Shamrock stated, “I mean, it’s over, there’s no question. I fought guys so much better than him that were strikers in the K1 that could kick and punch and knee and elbow, so no problem. But in a boxing match, man, he would knock the piss out of me.”
You can check out the complete podcast below:
(h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription)
