One of the few stars to compete at the highest level in both professional wrestling and mixed martial arts drew criticism when he attempted to become a crossover star.
While speaking with Giancarlo Aulino, Ken Shamrock discussed a number of different topics, including the backlash he received for leaving UFC for WWE. He recalled how he was called a sellout for his move.
Not only did some of the fans turn on me but some of guys in the Lion’s Den, after everything that I did and gave them a career – obviously they earned it no question – but some of them turned on me and didn’t understand why I was doing this. Because they were feeling the heat being a part of the Lion’s Den that I was going into something that was ‘fake’ and it wasn’t real and I was a sell-out. So I had to eat it. I had to listen to all that stuff. And you know, I think a lot of these people that are crossing over and doing it now, they should be thankful that they’re not the first ones to have to do it because it wasn’t a pretty sight for me.
All those people that followed me, half of them turned on me. And of course, being in that realm of being this celebrity in fighting and people turning on you, it’s not fun. You hear a lot of things there’s nothing you could do about it. But you know, being successful heals everything. We were able to turn wrestling into something that people could be proud to watch. It became this Attitude Era and people started to think it was cool and pretty soon it blew up. And thank goodness because it could’ve turned out much differently and I could’ve got squashed…I thought I was able to be very successful in wrestling even though I that there was a lot more we could’ve done. Unfortunately it didn’t happen, but I felt like I represented wrestling well and I represented the MMA world well.
Ken Shamrock
We will have to wait and see whether Shamrock will return to WWE one day.
H/T to Ringside News
Follow Corey at @CoreyBrennanBS on Twitter
If you enjoy Bodyslam’s content, you can help donate to the site here. You can also visit our PWTees store and buy Bodyslam official merchandise here.
You can listen to all of Bodyslam’s podcasts by following us on Spotify and subscribing to our YouTube Channel, or any of your favorite podcast platforms.ⓘⓘⓘⓘⓘⓘⓘⓘⓘⓘ
