Hahaha man, I still think it's crazy to think he could beat any of the guys Barnett beat when he was top of the heap in Pride or submitted Dean Lister in submission wrestling, but you guys are all giving Shamrock much more credit as a grappler than I am, which makes me think I need to learn more about him.
Speaking for myself, I'm entertaining the possibility that, in a grappling match, Ken could outwrestle and control Josh on the one hand and nullify/avoid his submissions on the other. I don't know if Ken would've been able to submit him, but he was very fast, very powerful, and had great technique, so it's not out of the realm of possibility for me. In an MMA context, Josh's superior striking would give him a more significant advantage and he'd make Ken's life very difficult. In MMA, Josh was always so active and effective off of his back with strikes, sweeps, and scrambles, and if he ended up on top of Ken the way that he reversed Couture, Ken'd be in more trouble than vice-versa. Not to mention, Josh made Couture work very hard and take a lot of elbows and knees even to get him to the ground. I'm not claiming that Ken would walk through Josh. The point is that asking who'd win, Ken vs Josh, isn't on the same level of absurdity as asking who'd win, Keith Hackney vs Josh. Ken had incredible physical and technical tools and in his prime he wouldn't be an easy win for Josh. It's a modest claim but considering how little people know about Ken, I understand that it seems crazy
Frank is the Shamrock I saw as a grappling phenom, which is why I'm a huge fan of Frank. As a kid, I managed to get my hands on a few of Frank's rings fights, his SuperBrawl with John Lober, and his UFC run. Across all of this, the thing I saw Frank doing was growing as a grappler until he became unstoppable.
Frank has endless stories of Ken mauling him and everyone else at the Lion's Den (as does every individual member). Ken was the alpha dog. Stronger and slicker than everybody, Frank included. In fact, Frank owes more to Ken than he does to Maurice Smith and TK combined. Ken taught him the skills and toughened him up. Frank was prone to gassing and mentally checking out, so Ken would stay on him and he molded Frank into the beastly competitor that he was. One of the best examples of cornering in MMA history is Ken literally willing Frank to fight to the bell in Frank's all-out war against Allan Goes in Pancrase, a Pancrase classic and just one of the best fights of all-time in my book.
With Pancrase rules at the time, with the rope escapes and no judges, if neither fighter lost any points or if they lost the same number of points, the fight was declared a draw. Each man submitted the other once and forced rope escapes, so the fight was declared a draw. But Frank was fighting for his life against Goes, who was using GNP - which nobody did in those days - and top-notch BJJ. And without Ken in the corner, shouting out instructions and willing his body to execute everything that they trained at the Lion's Den, Frank loses that fight.
I never saw Ken as a grappler, but, except for his Bas match, I never saw him outside of the UFC and Pride. He submitted a lot of people in the UFC, but, except for Brian Johnston, I didn't think any of the people he submitted knew submissions, so I just never viewed him as a submission wiz. (Now I know Kimo became much more of a submission guy than I gave him credit for.)
Oh, dude, Ken was
the submission wiz back in the day. Royce taught everyone about the guard and schooled folks on BJJ, but Ken was the catch wrestling king, hooking leg locks and snatching arm triangles in Pancrase like nobody's business, on top of his submission wins in the UFC. If you watch his Pancrase fights, all of which are on Fight Pass and probably YouTube as well, I think that you'll gain a whole new appreciation of his grappling.
The first school I was ever able to train at had a grappling program from Larry Hartsell
Cool, the JKD guy
when I look at those old Pancrase matches, I see guys that were very submission oriented, but very loose (even sloppy) with no concern for position, just like i was trained to be.
Haha, yep. I got a lot of my friends into MMA, and four of us got into it enough to do BJJ (and later MT) together. I'll never forget when we were all at my house one day and I showed them some old school Pancrase. One of my friends, who hadn't seen as much MMA, had no idea what it was, and he literally couldn't fathom what he was witnessing. No guard, just mount, side mount, and leg locks! He'd watch guys move on top and wonder WTF the guy on the bottom was doing. All he knew was BJJ and he couldn't comprehend not immediately looking for at least half-guard if not full guard
I'm excited to learn what I can about all these Pancrase dudes
Ken was the champ (literally the King of Pancrase), Funaki and Suzuki were his teachers and the two who created Pancrase, Frank was interim champ, Bas Rutten of course preferred striking on the feet even with open palms but he had to learn submissions to survive and his idionsyncratic grappling was effective and fun to watch, and then my favorite "dark horse" has always been Manabu Yamada.
It sounds like TK guard is a closed guard with your legs open and your knees pulled back, so your feet are floating by their butt? I'm amazed that didn't get him leglocked by other Japanese catch guys.
Yeah, pretty much. But TK was a leg locker himself, so he knew the deal. He also benefited (for his guard work and for moving on the ground in general) from being
extremely flexible. He'd get leg lock entries
while mounted. He'd swing his legs up, hook your leg(s) from the bottom, and create space to escape the mount and wrap up one of your legs. It was an effective escape and a great way to get to the legs. Here he is using it on Kimo:
I used that move myself a bunch in my short-lived grappling life, though I'd have to pick a side and
really bend to get my leg over, as I wasn't as flexible as TK
And an Rickson vs Funaki match that I don't ever remember happening lol
That one's unfortunate because Rickson waited for Funaki to retire after his body was shot from all the pro-wrestling and fighting, his knee was busted, he called it a career...and
then Rickson called him out. Rickson could've fought in Pancrase at any time in the '90s. He could've called Funaki out at any point between 1993-1997. But no. Rickson waited until Funaki was shot. And even still, he couldn't take Funaki down, bitched about special rules all the way up to fight night and then opened by kneeing Funaki in the balls. Rickson is a disgraceful competitor and that fight is quite pathetic, not least because Bas Rutten was the reigning and defending King of Pancrase and he was calling Rickson out at the same time that Sakuraba was beating up his entire family, yet Rickson picks on a pro wrestler with no experience and no skills in Takada and an injured and retired former champ in Funaki. Real chickenshit.
I don't agree that it was a work. I think they started out with some flashy stuff and then got down to business.
This has also always been my impression of it, because after the first sequence, there was this very clear restart from the feet before it turned into a proper fight like they wanted to make sure neither had an advantage after the worked part.
I'm not going to pretend that it wouldn't still be bad if it was only half worked, but please give me a timestamp for when you think it becomes legit. Because I'm seeing the excellent wrestler Suzuki act terribly as he pretends to struggle - and then fails miserably - to execute an embarrassingly and uncharacteristically lame body lock TD before getting submitted almost immediately thereafter by
literally giving up his back and not moving
at all...absolutely none of which is plausible to me. It's not as hilariously obvious and over-the-top as Ken's Northern Lights Suplex-to-Kimura finish on Matt Hume, but it's close