Sunday last in Sydney, Australia. It’s the sophomore show of upstart promotion, Impact Fight Club. MMA pioneer Ken Shamrock takes the bell in his headline bout against fellow UFC veteran Pedro Rizzo.
Three minutes later, referee ‘Big’ John McCarthy is prying Rizzo off Shamrock’s foetal, semi-conscious frame. Nothing could be more predictable.
It wasn’t always like this for Ken Shamrock. Hard to believe now, but he was the most feared MMA fighter in the world for a period in the 90s. He finished 16 of his first 20 opponents with an unrivalled submission game, including wins over fellow pioneers Bas Rutten (twice) and Masakatsu Funaki.
Ken Shamrock in better days:
What’s more, Shamrock was charismatic and marketable. In an age when fighters were still a tad doughy, Shamrock’s physique looked like it was chiselled from granite.
And few could match his ability to hype a fight (thanks in part to a three-year stint hamming it up in the WWE). His grudge matches with Royce Gracie, Don Frye and TIto Ortiz are still among the most notorious and lucrative in MMA history.
But time has long-since caught up with Shamrock. At 46 years old, he has lost eight of his last 10 fights. His last six losses have all come by first round knockout, and his only win since 2004 came last year against a 26 stone fighter named Ross ‘Grizzly Bear’ Clifton. Clifton died of natural causes barely six months later, at the age of 32. Enough said.
Boxing history is teeming with fighters who refused to hang up their gloves. One needn’t look further than the great Mohammed Ali. The pummelling he took in his penultimate bout against Larry Holmes – at which time he was already presenting signs of Parkinson’s disease – endures as one of the saddest spectacles in the history of combat sports.
Ali v Holmes – one of the most tragic bouts in fight history:
With MMA still in its infancy, Ken Shamrock is among the first generation of fighters to reach (and ignore) a sensible retirement age. That threshold probably came and went in 2002, when his corner threw in the towel during a lopsided beating from arch-nemesis Tito Ortiz. By any barometer, Ken was clearly a shot fighter that night.
So why, eight years on, are we still being subjected to the harrowing spectacle of a faded legend being thrown to younger, hungrier wolves? Ken himself answered that question when he addressed the crowd after his latest mauling: “As long as fans keep watching me, I’ll keep getting beat up.” Disturbingly, this wonky bravado drew loud cheers from the audience.
Ken might be the oldest and most washed-up of the pioneer generation, but he’s not alone. Fan favourites like Chuck Liddell, Jens Pulver and Kazushi Sakuraba are shells of their prime selves, but each has yet to announce his retirement.
Whether it’s the seduction of money, glamour or competition, there will always be fighters who seem incapable of walking away.
Alan Murphy
