Hall of Famer Ken Shamrock details his experience pre-UFC, says Japan was "literally" only place he could improve
Ken Shamrock recently opened up about his experience as an MMA fighter before the launch of the UFC and noted that it led to him splitting time between the United States and Japan.
'The World's Most Dangerous Man' is one of the pioneers of the sport as he began his career in the Japanese-based promotion Pancrase before competing in the inaugural UFC tournament and becoming one of the promotion's first stars. His contributions and accomplishments resulted in a well-deserved induction into the promotion's inaugural Hall of Fame class along with Royce Gracie in 2003.
During a Q&A for Monopoly Events' For The Love of Wrestling, Ken Shamrock detailed what he had to do to improve as a fighter during the early years of the sport. He mentioned that he was unable to find a place to train MMA in the United States, so he extended his stay in Japan when fighting for Pancrase. He said:
"I started staying over [in] Japan. I'd fly out one month, I would train there a month, I would do a fight, then I would fly home for a month...cause it was the only place that I could literally learn how to do that [train MMA]...Here in the States, UFC or any of that stuff hadn't been born yet. There was no such thing as boxing and wrestling mixed together, so I had to stay over there to do that but that was the experience I had." [20:20 - 20:45]
Ken Shamrock's dedication to repeating the cycle of traveling to Japan for a month at a time to train and fight and return home for another month paid off as he was one of the most successful fighters during the 1990s.
Check out the full Q&A below:
Ken Shamrock heaps praise on Pancrase legends Masakatsu Funaki and Minoru Suzuki
Ken Shamrock recently heaped praise on Masakatsu Funaki and Minoru Suzuki for inspiring him to become an MMA fighter.
During the aforementioned Q&A, the UFC Hall of Famer mentioned that he learned a great deal from training with the Pancrase legends early in his career and credited them for teaching him submission techniques. He said:
"Those guys [Funaki and Suzuki] were already at a level that I wasn't at yet. So I went in there [training] and I got just tortured and tooled. But the one thing was that when I first felt the heel hook and the armbars and all the submissions like that, in my mind was like, 'This is what I want to do'." [19:48 - 20:04]