Is Ken Shamrock really the 'Greatest American Catch Wrestler' in history?

Here's a classic old school clip for you as I know you'll appreciate it. Billy Robinson was a legit terror.

Real old English catch wrestling here in what was the Lions Den of its day.
 
I don't think I have ever heard anyone use that title period.
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No way. Josh is a better guard game fighter, and by a considerable margin, but Ken's top game was next level beastly..

Ken was certainly ultra aggressive as a top game fighter but again I think level of opposition is a factor here, in the early UFC and Pancrase you were talking some very questionable sub defence and honestly in the latter some of the matches were clearly pro wrestling still(like that bridged suplex into kumira).

A lot of what he was doing then would just end up being defended and losing his position vs someone like Barnett or Nog.
 
Josh was a better grappler and a better fighter tha ken. He was a better top and bottom grappler and his boxing was better than ken.
 
And, speaking of Ken's insane strength and his positional dominance, I loved hearing Title Fight's and Doughbelly's secondhand and firsthand stories.

Damn, that took me down memory lane. Can't believe it's been 20 years since I rolled with those guys.

Here's another thread about Ken I just found while searching for other comments I'd made about Ken and the Lion's Den.

http://forums.sherdog.com/threads/ken-shamrock-how-strong-was-he.2624221/

Here's a post I made on that thread re: Ken's game.

I've written about this in the grappling forums when I used to post there.

I used to work out at Guy Mezger's and have trained quite a bit in different disciplines, all over the world. I've been pinned by guys who would go on to medal at the Olympics and rolled with many guys that some of you might be familiar with.

Ken's top pressure was absolutely unreal. Some guys can smother you, other guys have suffocating top games. If you know what you're doing, you can still try to move. Not Ken. You couldn't think when Ken was on top of you. Ken's pressure from north-south was such that it felt like your head was going to pop like a grape.

I wish I'd had access to a gif of Oberyn Martell's head exploding back then.

As far as his strength? It was like trying to wrestle your dad when you were a little kid.

You just couldn't budge the guy. And the amount of pressure Ken could put on you from on top was insane. When Ken rode you, you were going to feel it the next day. That's why he was so <ahem> dangerous. You were willing to do stupid shit to get out from under there and made errors. Ken was good at <cough> catching them.
 
Do you think prime Ken would have beaten Kohsaka, Enson, Kevin Jackson, Zinoviev, Jeremy Horn, and Tito? I’ll give Ken a pass on losing to Tito three times as he was out of his prime then.

The only one I see giving him a lot of trouble would be Kohsaka. You could ask Maurice Smith. He trained with both. He had some opinions about Ken.
 
And how beastly is that move of pinning Bas' arms to the mat to give his leg clearance for the spin? In both of their fights, Ken didn't just make Bas look outmatched, he made him look utterly helpless.

In addition to that beautiful spin to the kneebar finish in their second fight, I also love the way that Ken finished their first fight with that lightning fast RNC out of the scramble.

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Prime Ken was something else, man.
Notice he uses the same style of choke he used on limbo with the hand on top of the head. Maybe not a work after all?
 
The only one I see giving him a lot of trouble would be Kohsaka. You could ask Maurice Smith. He trained with both. He had some opinions about Ken.
I spoke to mark Coleman on phone for 30 min via Facebook
He said ken was unreal but told me many stories
 
Josh Barnett, Matt Hume, and Erik Paulson are all well ahead.
I like Jeremy Horn in that list too actually.
 
I understand OP means in [MMA]history...

Josh has/had a wider submission arsenal, imo was more 'cerebral' in his grappling approach as a catch wrestler...

Ken was more 'intuitive', the way I see it, and @ 205 llbs had perhaps a more idealistic body when it comes to 'dexterity'...

Guys like Frank & Paulson had an interesting skillset/dexterity too...
 
And how beastly is that move of pinning Bas' arms to the mat to give his leg clearance for the spin? In both of their fights, Ken didn't just make Bas look outmatched, he made him look utterly helpless.

In addition to that beautiful spin to the kneebar finish in their second fight, I also love the way that Ken finished their first fight with that lightning fast RNC out of the scramble.

giphy.gif


Prime Ken was something else, man.

Bas had zero ground game at that point in his career. Not really much of an accomplishment
 
The only one I see giving him a lot of trouble would be Kohsaka. You could ask Maurice Smith. He trained with both. He had some opinions about Ken.
Enson, Kevin Jackson,: not obvious candidates for a [high level] fantasy match-up imo...

Better think about OGs like Babalu & Ebenezer Braga [both Luta Livre ~ Catch Wrestling]...

Zinoviev,Goes,TK: very dangerous...

Most well-rounded: Zino & Goes

Ken beats them all in Pancrase, except maybe a more mature Goes...

In Vale Tudo rules: TK [tough mofo and very resilient, see his fight vs Carlos Morais] and Goes [creative striking, decent boxing, slick transitions on the ground] would be the most dangerous.. Zinoviev would be a lil bit outsized imo...
 
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Bas had zero ground game at that point in his career. Not really much of an accomplishment

You should've read some of those novels of mine in the other Ken Shamrock thread, because then you would've read about how...

That loss changed bas into a mma fighter tho. He wasnt going to lose by leglock again and started training bjj and grappling. So in a way we can thank ken for creating the bas that came to be.

I absolutely love Bas, he's one of my all-time favorite fighters along with Ken, but this is a ridiculous myth perpetuated by Bas for the sake of his ego. Prior to his first fight with Ken, Bas trained diligently for six months on his submissions with Funaki, who also cornered Bas for that fight. He also tells that stupid story during his commentary on his second fight with Ken about being taught the "wrong" kneebar defense as if that's why Ken tapped him, yet in his fight with Frank three months prior to that rematch with Ken he was using (hence clearly knew) the "right" kneebar defense.

In short: Bas wasn't the grappling neophyte he'd like people to think he was. Ken was just better than him.
er losing to ken made him focus only on the grappling side of fighting.

That's a myth that's been perpetuated by Bas. Losing to Funaki is what made him focus on the grappling side of fighting. It was getting tapped by Funaki that inspired him to go train with Funaki. That's why Funaki was cornering Bas for his first fight with Ken. He'd been training Bas for months.

Losing to Ken was the straw that broke the camel's back; after losing to Ken, Bas vowed that he'd never get tapped again (although Suzuki did manage to force a rope escape in their rematch). But the myth that Bas was just a kickboxer from Holland who knew nothing but guillotines for the first two years of his career, that was Bas selling wolf tickets.
 
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