BTownDragon - yes Barnet is famous in Japan. Ken was trained by Dean Malenko and did pro wrestling before help joined pancrase. Jushin 'Thunder' Liger has done a MMA match. Bas and Herring have done wrestling matches. Mark Kerr used to tag team with Coleman before he was replaced be Randleman.
I couldn't find any info of Ken doing Pro wrestling before Pancrase.
Anyone who has read Shamrocks book knows he wrestled first and got beat down by the Nasty Boys.
xcouturefan - Ken wrestled as Vince Torrelli(sp) before UFC and he pro-wrestled in Japan.
Severn carried the NWA pro-wrestling belt to the cage in UFC 4.
I saw Ken wrestle as Vince Torelli a few times. It was for a smaller promotion. He was a heel. He used the Superfly Snuka press as a finisher.
It was definitely before his Japan Pancrase days.
I saw Severn fight for the UWFi on several cards, all prior to his UFC debut. He was Gary Albrights tag partner.
JimmersonzGlove - Don Frye wrestled Inoki in Inoki's retirement match. That's pretty f'n huge. Should also mention Ogawa since Ogawa vs Yoshida is in the top 3 highest rated MMA fights of all time.
Interesting about Ogawa. A couple of years or so before the Ogawa v. Yoshida match up, there was a HS Gym Pro Wrestling card in Holmdel NJ, featuring mostly indy guys. The main event of that card was Dan Severn vs. Ogawa for the NWA Pro Wrestling Title.
Perhaps 100 people at best were at that card. Ogawa pinned Severn btw. I only knew about the card because there was a poster in a deli near me.
Yet a few years later, Ogawa is battling Yoshida in MMA and the entire country of Japan is buzzing.