Ken Shamrock Not Fond Of Current BMF Belt
Ken Shamrock is one of the pioneers of mixed martial arts. Therefore, he is not too happy what constitutes being a “BMF” in 2019.
Last weekend, at UFC 244, Nate Diaz took on Jorge Masvidal for the title of “Baddest Motherf—er.” It was a very highly anticipated bout, which Masvidal would win. One of the many people who were interested in this fight, was Ken Shamrock.
Shamrock competed at the first ever UFC event, cementing his legendary status. He was a man who had to deal with few rules, one night tournaments, and the obscurity of the sport. As a result, he is not very impressed with the current crop of “BMFs.” In fact, as he told Ariel Helwani, he considers himself the original BMF.
“It’s funny to hear these guys talk about toughness and being tough and being bad. It’s like, man, if they only knew what went through in those beginning days, with no training, there was no map of how to train. There were guys that would go to the park and get in fights with people in order to get training, real training in. You’ve seen a lot of guys that would just do a road tour. They’d drive from one end of California to the other end and they would stop at different places and do fights on these different promotions in the beginning days when there was promotions everywhere. They would drive across country just hitting every stop and fighting at them, just to get the training in”
Shamrock went on, explaining how the lack of ability to cross-train disciplines made his early days tough.
“Back in the day when I was over in Japan, before they even started the UFC, I couldn’t get anybody to train with me,” Shamrock said. “I would go into karate schools and boxing schools, they were striking and you’d take them down and they’d be like ‘No, what are you talking about’ or I’d get a wrestler and say ‘Shoot on me, I’m not gonna knock you out but I’m gonna punch you.’ There was nobody to do that so I had to open a gym and slowly start training people.
So for them to start talking about being a Bad MF, I just kinda laugh and go, oh my gosh, you guys are wearing four-ounce gloves, you fight one time a night, every six months to a year. Really? Come on.”
It is no surprise that fighters do not fight as often as he did. Especially considering the fact that tournaments like the ones Ken Shamrock competed in are no longer a thing. However there can be no doubt that, for his era, he really was a BMF.
