51-Year-Old Legendary Martial Artist to Compete Friday!

A Brief History

Legendary fighters Ken Shamrock (age 51) and Kimbo Slice (age 41) will battle inside the Bellator cage on Friday, June 19, 2015 in a historic match-up!

Digging Deeper

In one corner, we have Ken Shamrock, who, despite his age,  looks like an action figure.  A member of the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) Hall of Fame, Shamrock was the first ever UFC Superfight Champion.  He also had the longest fight in UFC history at 36 minutes.  In professional wrestling, he became the World Wrestling Federation’s Intercontinental Champion.  Of course most of his accomplishments are from the 1990s and his record post-2000 has been rather dismal.

Further tarnishing his record is the fact that he tested positive for steroids after a bout in 2009.  Shamrock has also not competed since 2010.

In the other corner, we have Kimbo Slice an undefeated professional boxer and cast member of The Scorpion King 3 (2012).  Slice became famous for participating in various unsanctioned street fights, only losing once on tape to a former Boston police officer.  As an amateur and professional mixed martial artist, Slice won five fights and lost three.  His first and most significant loss occurred in just 14 seconds in 2008.  Slice was booked to fight Shamrock on that fateful night, but Shamrock pulled out of the fight due to a cut suffered to his left eye during a pre-fight warm-up.  As a last-minute replacement to Shamrock, the promotion (EliteXC) hosting the event put in Seth Petruzelli who scored the biggest win of his career on what was one of the most watched mixed martial arts fights of all time.

The debacle of the main event being changed and EliteXC’s star losing in such dramatic fashion resulted in the collapse of EliteXC.  It is not often that one fight puts a company out of business!

Now, several years later, the two men are set to fight once again, hopefully, this time they will indeed actually fight.  They are older but still sport impressive physiques.

Question for students (and subscribers) to ponder: Should fighters still be sanctioned to fight over age 50?  Are you watching this fight?  Finally, who do you predict will come out triumphant?

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Historical Evidence

For more information, please see…

Hanner, Richard and Ken Shamrock.  Inside the Lion’s Den: The Life and Submission Fighting System of Ken Shamrock.  Tuttle Publishing, 1998.