Prime Ken Shamrock vs Khabib

Alcibiades007 said:
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Just don't tell me this isn't an interesting match up, cause it IS!

Thoughts!

Next of, he faces Connor!

{<Mcgoat}
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Fantasy matchups are to be posted in wasteland
 
C0NCH3TO said:
lol at some pencil necks here bathmouthing a legend like Ken. Mma was fucking rudimentary back then you bum noobs. Nobody knew a thing about bjj back then. Lets say that we bring a young Ken to 2018 and he trains at a top mma gym for a year or two. He would pick it up rather fast. If that was the scenario idk who would win, but it wouldnt be a easy fight for Khabib, Shamrock was a fucking heavyweight at some point.
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Exactly. These hypothetical matches have all sorts of unknown assumptions. In this case we should at least assume prime Ken (around 1996, after Royce rematch and a bit more evolved) could watch tape on Khabib. If he did, he'd realize Khabib is primarily a wrestler and isn't known for subbing people off their backs like Royce. Ken was a lot bigger and stronger than Khabib, so I think it would look like a cross between Ken-Royce and Ken-Oleg, with Ken winning a decision. Don't forget Oleg was another sambo guy with worse wrestling but better submissions than Khabib...and he was considerably bigger as well.

But yeah, one of the worst aspects of Sherdog is people watching the sport in its infancy (1993-1997 NHB) and judging it by 2018 MMA standards. If you watched the early UFCs and all the hype about Royce, you'd realize that just neutralizing Royce and getting a draw was a huge moral victory. The narrative back then is that size didn't matter and no one could beat a Gracie. After a few serious challenges (Kimo, Severn and even Keith Hackney to an extent), Royce couldn't submit Ken and left the UFC, knowing his reign was over.
 
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Shamrock was huge from juicing. He had decent submissions. However he didn't know Royce beat him because he was untrained outside of submission wrestling in pancrase. Khabib on the other hand has a better knowledge base then Royce, is about the same weight without cutting, and is technically better.

Khabib.
 
Arrrrgh said:
Shamrock was huge from juicing. He had decent submissions. However he didn't know Royce beat him because he was untrained outside of submission wrestling in pancrase. Khabib on the other hand has a better knowledge base then Royce, is about the same weight without cutting, and is technically better.

Khabib.
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You're conflating the 1993 Shamrock (with 1 year of Pancrase and zero knowledge of BJJ) with the 1995-97 Shamrock who evolved quite a bit. Sure, he didn't have the knowledge of an elite 2018 grappler, but at least he had a working knowledge of BJJ submissions and how to defend them. He'd also trained extensively with Oleg Taktarov by that time. Oleg was one of the best submission specialist of that era.

Again, though, there are so many unknown assumptions that you can't seriously analyze these fights. Do we assume Khabib has full knowledge of every early Shamrock fight while Ken has zero knowledge of Khabib's skillset? That's certainly not fair or realistic in any way.
 
Are they BOTH on steroids? Neither on steroids? Or, just Ken on steroids?
 
Shammy is the most underrated and underappreciated fighter of all time. Dude was a legit bad ass. Sure, he spent his prime in WWF, and the game had passed him by when he returned, but he was still an all time great. Did himself no favors with a few sketchy performances/dives when he was past it, but he's not the joke a lot of MMA fans make him out to be.
 
pretty silly thread as explained by many replies.

no-one has mentioned that drawing with Royce when the UFC was OWNED (i mean actually OWNED) by the Gracies was pretty impressive.

the sport was in its infancy - these days a prime Ken with all the benefits of proper study of opponents (no mysterious BJJ) would beast Kabib - he was a LOT bigger!

if they were both the same weight then we can talk...
 
Isn't Shamrock several weight classes above Khabib? I see Shamrock smashing him.
 
wilKO said:
In pancraese which didn't allow punches and was extremely shady. Bas was a pure striker back then.
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You da man wilKO but Bas is the most overrated fighter by older fans that this "sport" has ever seen.
 
wwkirk said:
Isn't Shamrock several weight classes above Khabib? I see Shamrock smashing him.
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Yeah, two fights from 1995 should give you some context:
Shamrock vs Severn 1: Severn was a 2-time Div I All-American wrestler who was at least 250 pounds. Shamrock handled himself very well in the clinch with Severn and won via guillitone after around 2 minutes. Severn couldn't take him down.

Shamrock vs. Oleg (small HW sambo guy with very dangerous subs): as mentioned earlier, it was a weird fight and they allegedly agreed not to submit each other. Still, Shamrock took Oleg down and kept him there, battering up into a pretty bloody mess.

Now imagine Khabib without a weight cut, maybe 185 pounds...is he really going to implement his gameplan vs. prime 230-240 pound Ken?
 
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C0NCH3TO said:
lol at some pencil necks here bathmouthing a legend like Ken. Mma was fucking rudimentary back then you bum noobs. Nobody knew a thing about bjj back then. Lets say that we bring a young Ken to 2018 and he trains at a top mma gym for a year or two. He would pick it up rather fast. If that was the scenario idk who would win, but it wouldnt be a easy fight for Khabib, Shamrock was a fucking heavyweight at some point.
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Ken was absolutely no joke from 93-96.

He was talented, athletic and open minded. MMA simply didn’t have all the data and resources back then compared to now. It’s easy for people to bash him after seeing such progress in the sport since then.
 
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