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This news is a bit old but still interesting...

Frank Shamrock Comments Relationship w/ Ken Shamrock
June 11, 2004

Reported By: Boxing Insider - 06.11.2004 02:18 AM

Boxinginsider.com: Ken's is makeing his UFC fighting return against Kimo on June 19th. How do you see that fight unfolding?

Frank Shamrock: I think it's going to be a very physical fight. Although Kimo is a pretty good technician, I think Ken is a far better technician. Kimo definitely has a fight on. I really feel like Ken's strength in this fight is to [bang] with him, to beat him up a little bit. Kimo has got some striking ability but he doesn't really know how to strike. I think Ken can really tire him out by whacking him around a little bit. Then on the ground, so long as Ken stays up on top and damages him I think he can fatigue him out pretty quickly and get him either him either with a hold or a choke or just beat him down -- "Well, you are grounded, pal".

Boxinginsider.com: Will you be in Las Vegas for the fight?

Frank Shamrock: I wish I were. I signed up about two months ago to do an appearance seminar in New Jersey so I'm going to watch it on pay per view after the gig. I miss the whole thing, unfortunately.

Boxinginsider.com: As far as future matches, I know Ken was been itching for a Tito Ortiz rematch when he is healthy. He would like a match with Royce Gracie. He recently tried to negotiate matches with Dan Severn as well as Tank Abbott. Is that who you would like see with Ken face in his next four fights?

Frank Shamrock: Yes, absolutely. I would do the Tank Abbott one-first because it would sell big. Ken has obviously got himself together mentally. I mean he is focused on cleaning up his losses and securing his record and his legacy, which is good. I'm glad he's on that path in all those fights. What people fail to realize -- is it takes nine years to build a generation on television. It takes years. It takes nine years to build a generation of fan base. Ken is one of the only guys who has been in the public for that complete length of time but who has also crossed over into other areas of public awareness at such a high level.

As I said, Ken has most probably attacked all of the mixed martial arts. He should be, and can still be, the poster boy for what a mixed martial arts sport and fighter is. He just needs to leverage those things properly. If he is on the right path of fighting, even he needs someone good to take care of his financial stability in the future; he needs to concentrate on his stuff.

BoxingInsider.com: If we could go back to the beginning. When did you first meet up with Bob and Ken Shamrock?

Frank Shamrock: I met Bob in 1988 I think it was, or 1989 -- somewhere around there. I was 13. I am 35 now and I've known him 18 years. Bob came to interview me at home in Reading, California. I had been through a number of group homes, so Bob's was an elevated level of security, as they call it. He came out and interviewed me and kind of liked me so he said he was going to try to get me at his home. I think about three weeks later he showed up and picked me up, and I was placed in his group home. I think I met Ken about three to four months later. He was away at college and had come back to visit Bob and to see everybody. That was the first time that I had actually met him then. I was 13 and I think we started training together about 8 or 9 years later.

Boxinginsider.com: What was the relationship like when you guys were training together in the early days?

Frank Shamrock: You know, Ken's a different kind of guy. Ken's a real fighter. He's a real warrior in that sense. It is very difficult to get close to him, and I never really developed a close personal relationship with him -- especially in the early days of training, because he really didn't want to train me. He thought -- and rightfully so, at the time, because it was truly about fighting, it wasn't about martial arts, or style or whatever -- he really thought that I didn't have the elements necessary to be a real fighter. I'm soft-spoken, I'm not an angry, aggressive person -- and he thought that if I wasn't going to make a fighter, he was basically wasting his time.

But Bob definitely wanted to do it, so he did it even though he didn't want to.

Boxinginsider.com: Did that cause some friction in your relationship?

Frank Shamrock: Not really. I understood that he didn't want tot train me. But I didn't really have a relationship with him. I had deep respect for his physical abilities and for his person -- he's a large, intimidating person. It was new to me; I hadn't really done anything sport-wise or physical-wise for a while; I hadn't really tested or tried my body out -- so I just went for it. But with Ken I never really developed that kind of close relationship. We were always in a teacher-student kind of relationship when we first started working out together.

Boxinginsider.com: Did you feel that the two of you could work well training together for the next phase of both your careers?

Boxinginsider.com: You did some fights early on in your career out of Pancrase. Ken was already famous over there - and you had been there for a bunch of his fights. Did you feel that you had to live up to any expectations?

Frank Shamrock: Oh, yes, of course. There's always that in any kind of older sibling relationship or younger sibling relationship, and then as well in professional relationships. So that was always there. Deep down inside that was one of the reasons why I felt that I had to leave in 1997 and make my own way because it's good -- I was getting as much as I believed the people there, and the people I was working with they didn't believe it or see it that there was another level that I was going to go to. They just figured that I was always going to be Ken's little brother, helping him out, working as his student.