[complete]

Boxinginsider.com: You then went the some route as Ken and went to the US to fight in UFC where many people feel you became the greatest champion in UFC history. What was it like establishing a legacy on your own?

Frank Shamrock: It was very fulfilling. I really believed. I'm sort of an intellectual kind of guy when it comes to studying and doing things. I really believed at that point in time that I had the physical, the mental, and the technical ability to pretty much do whatever I wanted to in the way of fighting. In the fighters I was training I was really testing my theories and testing the things that I believed in on those guys, and they were very successful. So I knew, and I really, truly believed it, and I went to Canada, I went to my dad and I said "I really believe this is going to happen" and they both looked at me as if I had an extra finger coming out of my head, or whatever. They very politely told me that I wasn't a fighter, that I should concentrate on training and teaching and doing these other things.

That was really crushing to me to hear my mentor, my teachers, telling me that. So it almost became necessary to do all those things, and when I did them I had the fulfillment of something that not only I really believed in working, but also something that people kind of knew might happen, but I think more people were saying things like "Poor Frank, he's going to go and get his butt kicked." So it was very fulfilling in that way. It was kind of like not that "I told you so" but one of those "I knew I could do it" things.

Boxinginsider.com: You also left the Lion's Den then joined up with Maurice Smith and Team AKA. Was there friction between you and Ken then, and what was the dispute over?

Frank Shamrock: Yes. Ken wasn't happy that I left and the way that I left. I really didn't know how to articulate to him that [what I was doing] was holding me back from a career that I really believed in. I couldn't find a way to articulate that to Ken. So I kind of hectored at it and I told him what I was doing. Then one day I just got up early and I left. I left everything behind and I went to a new school and I went to a new area and I took with me my blue boxing gloves, and that was it. I left everything else behind. I left the name, and I started again.

It wasn't my intention. My intention was to carry on the Lion's Den, to carry on with traditions that we had created. When I left Ken said that I couldn't come back, that I couldn't use the name, that no one could train with me, and that essentially I was no longer a part of the family because of my choosing to leave. So I just accepted that and continued on, and that was where the friction started. He wasn't happy about that and he told his athletes not to participate with me, and it started this thing of friction. I never wanted it. I just wanted to do what I really believed in. Because of my lack of relationship with Ken I was unable to express to him that I truly believed in that and that I wanted to go do that.

Boxinginsider.com: And over the last few years - has that has sort of improved? Like You mentioned.

Frank Shamrock: We got over it, as time will do. It's been so long I can't even remember why it was such a big deal. When I look back on it, it was like "Wow, if that had never happened I would still be the same unhappy guy who's never going to achieve what he believes in and that wasn't my card in life.

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

Frank Shamrock: Absolutely. I've always told Ken and let him know that -- without being disrespectful -- that the knowledge and the level of training that we have is just astronomical. [We'd be] able to build a team of athletes and trainers that I've never seen anywhere else in the world -- with the amount of skill that we have at present. I've always thought it would be great to work, train, and exchange with Ken, being family, being my brother and all -- with everything, business -- everything.

I see a giant future for both of us, working together, because this is a bigger story than two brothers doing it all. It is much better than one brother, or two brothers who don't talk. But who knows? Ken is a very stoic person. He is who he is, and I have just never been able to break into that with who I am, and Ken's never had a good click in that way. We've always had a relationship based on something else -- training, fighting, whatever it is we were doing. In that way it is a little different.

Boxinginsider.com: In your own words, what is Ken's place in mixed martial arts history?

Frank Shamrock: Ken is definitely one of the pioneers. If this sport were to die, Ken would be one of the only remembered people, which is either really good or really bad -- I'm not sure. Ken is at the top. He has always been my teacher and mentor and I put him above myself in all of these things. I have always wanted the best for him because he has worked harder and done more for this sport than anyone else out there.