He was really just good at being the aggressor but bad at defending. For someone with so many submissions (22/28 wins) he was submitted a lot in his prime (his first 4 losses all subs).
Again, we have to know history so that we can put these things in their proper perspective. Those four losses you're referring to are to Royce Gracie, Minoru Suzuki (twice), and Masakatsu Funaki. Against Royce, he - and everyone else - was surprised by BJJ. Nothing to be ashamed of, especially considering that once he knew Royce's game Royce had nothing for him.
Against Suzuki, one of those two losses was a work, i.e. Ken intentionally lost. Once Ken became the King of Pancrase, the Pancrase brass was nervous about him continuing to fight in the UFC. They didn't want their champion to lose in another organization. So as soon as he won the title, they started asking him to drop it. First, heading into his Superfight rematch against Royce, they wanted him to lose his title to Bas Rutten. However, since Ken had already beaten him once before, he found that insulting. That's why he was so intense for that rematch and why he went out there and tapped Bas with that nasty kneebar in just a minute. He was making an example of Bas and taking out his frustration on him. But when they kept at him, asking ahead of his Superfight match against Dan Severn that he lose his title to Suzuki, Ken relented. Aside from being Japanese, so a hometown hero, and aside from being one of the co-founders of Pancrase, Suzuki did beat him once before, so Ken said "Fuck it," dropped his title in an obvious work, and then went and won the UFC Superfight title.
And then against Funaki, that second fight where he lost to a quick RNC was also most likely a work. The second fight against Suzuki is a very famous work, but his second fight against Funaki is just speculation. However, the circumstances of that fight raise some eyebrows. On Ken's side of things, he broke his hand in training and was unable to compete in UFC 2, yet when he finally gets the chance to compete in the UFC again for UFC 3, where he wanted desperately to get another shot at Royce, he's cool with competing in Pancrase against one of the top guys in the org and risking injury and possibly missing out on another UFC just a week before UFC 3? I find that very hard to believe. Then, on Funaki's side of things, he'd just lost to Ken's new guy, Jason Delucia, in his debut Pancrase fight, where Funaki was famously intending on carrying Delucia and making him look good for a while before eventually submitting him, only to be surprised by Delucia's skill and ending up submitted himself in just a minute. Since at the time Pancrase was holding its "Road to the Championship" events sort of "seeding" all of the eventual competitors in the King of Pancrase tournament, for Funaki to be able to "redeem" himself after losing to Ken's new guy by getting a win over Ken himself, it all just fits quite nicely. On this one, I could be wrong. Ken could've just gotten sloppy, he could've looked past Funaki having beaten him once before and having Royce on his mind with the UFC just a week away. But with the way the fight played out and with everything going on around it, I've always thought that one was a pretty obvious work.
So that's two losses by submission to two of the best submission fighters on the planet at the time, one of whom he would go on to show had nothing for him once he knew his game. And
maybe a third loss by submission to another one of the best submission fighters on the planet at the time, against whom he won two out of three fights. Hardly damning evidence of a questionable ground game.
I would love to see him in a commentary position.
He was a guest commentator a bunch in the early days while he was competing and he was great then, and then later I liked him in the booth with Goldberg at UFC 41. And for just one of the many reasons that Randy/Vitor II was a bummer, Ken was a guest commentator for that fight and didn't get to comment on much.
I don't see why you think Brock could have taken him down when Severn couldn't. Lesnar was not even close to the level of Severn in amateur wrestling
Records/accolades aside, Brock was bigger, stronger, and faster than Severn ever was.
As good as Ken was though I don't think there was ever a time when he was the best fighter in the world.
To clarify, I meant in terms of record/accomplishments/rankings. Whether you think there were people out there who could beat him, in the MMA standings he was in the #1 slot going from the King of Pancrase to the UFC Superfight Champion.
But on the subject of people out there who may have been able to beat him in his prime...
I can't see a way he ever beats Rickson and even Don Frye would have beat him back in the day.
...no way were these two on that list. Rickson wasn't even a paper champ, he was a word-of-mouth champ. Say what you want about Royce, at least he stepped in the cage event after event and fought the toughest guys the UFC had to offer, fighting multiple opponents a night and with a giant target on his back each and every time. Rickson did nothing but duck everyone who was average and above his entire MMA "career." While Royce was stepping into the UFC cage with Ken Shamrock and Dan Severn, Rickson was fighting David Levicki and Bud Smith. While Ken was stepping into the Pancrase ring with Masakatsu Funaki and Bas Rutten, Rickson was fighting Yoshihisa Yamamoto and Koichiro Kimura.
The only "legit" win that Rickson has is his win over Funaki, but even that win has a massive asterisk next to it. Rickson didn't call Funaki out until Funaki retired. Funaki officially retired in 1999 with no intention of ever competing again, he just wanted to focus on promoting Pancrase. Aside from being burned out on years of pro wrestling and then Pancrase, his body was totally breaking down, he had multiple injuries including a really bad knee. He was done. But when Rickson called him out, Funaki, Samurai that he was and ambassador for Japanese MMA that he was, knew that it'd be a huge cultural event in Japan - and it was, that event was broadcast throughout Tokyo and got something like 30 million viewers, all of whom also got to see Funaki's Pancrase star Yuki Kondo obliterate Rickson's guy Saulo Ribeiro, which for Funaki made it all worth it even after losing himself - and so he came out of retirement and fought one more time.
All of that said, Rickson struggled mightily even with the broken down retired Funaki. He couldn't take him down no matter how hard he tried, and had he not blown out Funaki's bad knee with one of his kicks from the ground I don't think that he would've been able to get Funaki on his back. And Rickson even kneed Funaki in the nuts in like the first 10 seconds of the fight despite almost getting the fight called off for negotiating like a weasel all the way up to the day about "special rules" regarding knees, elbows, and headbutts for his delicate BJJ self.
Rickson may be a BJJ God, but he was an MMA fraud. Had he actually competed in Pancrase from 1993-1997, or had he fought someone not Nobuhiko Takada in PRIDE from 1997-2000, he would've been massacred. Both Ken Shamrock and Masakatsu Funaki in their primes would've had no problem with Rickson, Bas Rutten would've slaughtered him, Frank Shamrock and Kazushi Sakuraba would've handled him. If Rickson was great at anything in MMA, it was at protecting his phony image.
As for Don Frye, he was only able to deal with Ken after Ken was riddled with injuries and after Frye roided up so much that he was like 250 pounds of muscle. Had Ken fought Frye at UFC 8, say, or in the Ultimate Ultimate 1996, he would've had no problems manhandling the svelte 200-pound Frye. I mean, look at what Gary Goodridge, Brian Johnston, and Mark Coleman did to Frye. Goodridge was just big and strong and he gave Frye all he could handle until he'd gas; Johnston was just big and strong and he gave Frye all he could handle, too, yet Ken absolutely ran through him; and Frye could do absolutely nothing even to a bloated, gassed Coleman, yet when Coleman trained with Ken at the Lion's Den after Ken already went to the WWF the word was that Ken "humbled" Coleman.
Frye was one of those early well-rounded fighters with solid hands and solid grappling, but in his prime Ken would've dispatched him rather easily IMO.
After he beat Severn maybe a claim could be made but there were guys out there like Ruas who would have posed problems for him and had better standup. Ruas though wasn't much of a wrestler
Now Ruas would've posed a stylistic problem for Ken. Ken wouldn't have any problems dealing with Ruas on the feet and getting him to the ground - just look at the way Ken breezed through both Bas and Maurice Smith, both of whom were FAR superior strikers - but on the ground Ken would have to be very careful. He wouldn't have a big leg lock advantage nor would he have a big size advantage, so he'd have to be real careful with his top positioning and make sure that Ruas couldn't scramble and catch him with something. As for Ken, I don't know that he'd be able to get Ruas in anything but an arm-triangle. He'd probably be safer controlling from the top and shutting Ruas down the way that he shut down the super slick Manabu Yamada in their King of Pancrase match and judiciously GNPing like he did to Christophe Leninger.
Ken never showed he was better than Taktarov
Ken went easy on Oleg in their Superfight match because they were friends and training partners. Ken even got Oleg into Pancrase. He really didn't want to fight him and that's why he never really opened up on him. Even so, Oleg had absolutely nothing for Ken either on the ground or on the feet. In what universe is there any questions of who was better?
soon after Coleman came on the scene, again Ken would not have done well.
See above. Coleman was a monster but he couldn't do anything to anyone who had even somewhat of a clue of what to do on the ground. He couldn't do much to Maurice Smith, Pete Williams, or Pedro Rizzo when he had them on their backs. And Maurice Smith, who was on the mat with both Coleman and Kevin Randleman, said that Ken was by far the strongest guy he ever fought, saying that his suffocating top game was like being crushed by an anaconda.
he was an entertainer more than an actual fighter. a lot of those pancrase bouts were closer to pro wrestling than mma
Descartes had it right when he said that "confident assertion and frequent repetition are two ploys that are often more effective than the most weighty arguments when dealing with [people] who do not examine things carefully."
Yeah, the matches were definitely worth the watch. Really fun. It's really cool to see the earliest days of the sport like that.
Glad you enjoyed them. And yes, the
feeling of watching the first UFCs, the first Pancrase events, old Superbrawl events, etc., is like nothing else. Literally watching a sport be born and start to grow up is so much fun. Plus, the fights are awesome
Ken's transitions on the ground were really high level for that time period. I can definitely see what you're talking about when you talked about his knees. His mobility was notable in those pancrase matches.
Oh yeah, for a 220-ish pound muscular dude to be able to move the way he did was something else. He'd be on the mat with super slick smaller guys like Minoru Suzuki and Manabu Yamada and he was just as fast if not faster than them. He was such a quick scrambler despite his size and he could move from side mount to mount, front head lock to the back, etc., so fucking fast; he had great awareness with leverage and positoning; and he could lock up submissions before you had the time to react or get away.
He had that terrifying combination of strength, speed, and skill.
Didn't you say his knee health was at its lowest around the time he fought Don Frye and thereafter?
Yes. From around 2002-2004, he was at his unhealthiest. His knees were shot, his shoulder was bad, he was just a mess. That's why there's a sad irony to the fact that he was actually the healthiest he'd been in years for the Franklin fight. By the Kimo rematch, he'd healed up his knee, and then by the Franklin fight, he'd healed up his shoulder, so he was actually healthy and in shape for the first time in years. But after taking beatings from Tito and Frye and managing to eat every shot of theirs, by the time that he was healthy and in great shape for Franklin his chin was gone and so it was for naught
