UFC and IMPACT Hall of Famer Ken Shamrock recently spoke with Giancarlo Aulino from Sportskeeda MMA, where the World’s Most Dangerous Man discussed a number of different topics, including the backlash he received for leaving UFC for WWE back in the day, and how he feels about Bret “The Hitman” Hart. Highlights from the interview can be found below.
On being called a sell-out for leaving UFC and signing with WWE:
Not only did some of the fans turn on me but some of guys in the Lion’s Den, after everything that I did and gave them a career – obviously they earned it no question – but some of them turned on me and didn’t understand why I was doing this. Because they were feeling the heat being a part of the Lion’s Den that I was going into something that was ‘fake’ and it wasn’t real and I was a sell-out. So I had to eat it. I had to listen to all that stuff. And you know, I think a lot of these people that are crossing over and doing it now, they should be thankful that they’re not the first ones to have to do it because it wasn’t a pretty sight for me…All those people that followed me, half of them turned on me. And of course, being in that realm of being this celebrity in fighting and people turning on you, it’s not fun. You hear a lot of things there’s nothing you could do about it. But you know, being successful heals everything. We were able to turn wrestling into something that people could be proud to watch. It became this Attitude Era and people started to think it was cool and pretty soon it blew up. And thank goodness because it could’ve turned out much differently and I could’ve got squashed…I thought I was able to be very successful in wrestling even though I that there was a lot more we could’ve done. Unfortunately it didn’t happen, but I felt like I represented wrestling well and I represented the MMA world well.
On the infamous chairshot spot with The Rock:
I hardly felt it. I know it sounded bad and it hit boom!… But man, I’m a fighter. It’s like punches hurt more than a chair does. I’m sorry…. but when you get hit on the chin or in the nose as opposed to the forehead… I take a punch to the forehead because you’re going to break your hand. I think the same with the chair because the chair’s going to break before my forehead. It did not hurt. It was the first time anybody had ever done that to the face… I literally told The Rock, ‘Man you better bring it, I’ll protect myself.’ I think the most startling than anything was the way it sounded to me. It felt like a freaking shotgun going off.
On Bret Hart:
{Bret Hart} He’s a technician. He’s a pro’s pro. You go in there and he’s easy to work with. He’s aggressive but I like that and my style is kind of the same… And he’s no nonsense either.
Full interview is below.