Last night Ken Shamrock went out like a bitch. He took a glancing jab and decided to call it a night, Bob Sapp style. It should have come as no surprise. Ken Shamrock has always been kind of a bitch. Even during the formative years of MMA, when men were men, Shamrock was nothing more than a marketing gimmick with abs and a tight Speedo. This is a guy who was so afraid of 170 pound Royce Gracie that he hid in his guard for 30 minutes. Was so afraid of Oleg Taktarov that he held him in a tender embrace for 30 minutes.
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For Ken Shamrock’s career, Saturday’s fight in England at Cage Rage 25 is a lose-lose proposition. The best case scenario? He gets a convincing win over a fighter almost no one has heard of, Sunderland’s Robert “Buzz” Berry. The worst case? He gets smashed by a bigger and younger opponent and sees future large paydays against Kimbo Slice, Don Frye, and his adopted brother Frank go up in smoke.

Ken Shamrock is 44 years old. He’s an established brand name, arguably the biggest star in the history of MMA. At this stage of his career he doesn’t need tuneup fights. The engine is too worn out to risk it and the broader question is this: what is he tuning up for? Tito Ortiz, himself only a marginal contender thanks to years of wear and tear, made it abundantly clear with three decisive wins that Ken is no longer able to compete with the top talent in the sport. No one is going to be fooled into thinking that Ken would be a good opponent for Quinton Jackson because he beats a couple of Robert Berrys. So the benefit in fighting and beating Berry is simply the short-term financial gain of whatever Pro Elite is paying him for his time. The potential losses are much more significant.
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With company making a habit of delivering a major announcement in advance of every event, tt is almost traditional now that the fights themselves feel like the least newsworthy item when previewing a Cage Rage show.

In recent times we have seen the implementation of drug testing, witnessed a change in ownership with Gary Shaw’s Pro Elite becoming prominent shareholders and watched as Sky television began broadcasting the events live on their sports channels.

Cage Rage 25 takes place this Saturday evening at London’s Wembley Arena and true to form there is another new issue to get people talking.

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By Jonathan Snowden

While promoters in MMA typically follow the pro wrestling model with a huge emphasis on promotional branding and over-the-top feuds, some of the sport’s biggest stars have quietly been studying their sister sport of boxing. In boxing, there is no brand that attracts an audience. The fighters are the stars and people pay to see Oscar De La Hoya and Felix Trinidad, not a “Don King Production.”

The role model for fighters everywhere looking to take control of their career, and their finances, is Oscar De La Hoya. De La Hoya used his own celebrity and drawing power to create his own company, Golden Boy Promotions. Now instead of a simple fight purse, Oscar gets a piece of the whole pie. He gets a cut from the PPV gross, the gate, the site fee the casino pays, the foreign broadcast rights, ringside advertising, closed circuit, everything. “You know, being a promoter now, it’s kind of like opening the door and finding out what really is inside the house, so to speak. You know, a fighter doesn’t know what’s going on when it comes to how to promote a fight and where the money comes from and now that I’ve been a promoter for four years, I’ve learned the insights of how this boxing world really works,” De La Hoya told doghouseboxing.com. “And one of the main reasons why I turned promoter is to educate the fighter and little by little, with my company, we can hopefully educate the fighters and the way they handle their careers.”

De La Hoya doesn’t have opponents, he has partners. Bernard Hopkins is now the president of Golden Boy East. Shane Mosley is president of fighter relations. These fighters are determined to take their name value and use it to make every penny possible in the waning years of their careers, while at the same time building a stable of younger World Champions to follow in their footsteps.

Frank Shamrock has been watching De La Hoya closely and is ready to make his own leap. After he completes his commitments to Strikeforce and EliteXC he will be ready to make the giant jump from fighter to promoter. The fight that he thinks is attractive enough to draw the money he needs to go it alone has been announced: Brother versus brother. Frank Shamrock versus Ken Shamrock.

“I think it’s going to be the event that opens MMA up to the mainstream world. And that’s brother versus brother. We’ve got a quarter and a year so far, when we’re going to do it and that’s first quarter of 09,” Frank said. “We’re talking to every major network and distributor and arena. We’re going to change the way that mixed martial arts is promoted and also the way that the talent are paid. Right now the companies own everything. They own the show, they own the fighters, they own the distribution, they own the product. They own everything. These guys go in as basically hired talent, so they go in and fight and walk away with whatever purse is negotiated.”
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By Lee Casebolt
Once he was referred to, derogatorily, as “Ken Shamroid,” a reference to his sculpted – but suspect – physique in a sport he then co-dominated with a lanky Brazilian and a doughy wrestler. Now he is mocked as “Can Shamrock” due to his greatly diminished skills. Ken Shamrock has been derided for winning fights (“work!”), losing fights (“Petey, my heart!”), neither winning nor losing a fight (“boring!”), and making some admittedly unfortunate facial hair decisions. From the height of his powers to the depths of his (relative) dotage, Ken Shamrock can’t get a break.

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