He was on lot of stuff but a lot were, if he was born into some legendary bjj family and started as a baby like Royce he’d be the best of all time , he didn’t start until his mid to late 20s, read his book he had to live on the streets and all this other stuff, the Gracies trained all the time from being a baby
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Lots of “couldas” out there. Ken is one.
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Hey Somoa did you ever train with Relson Gracie black belt Phil Cardella by any chance?
No, the only “above white belts” when I was there were the Onzuka twins, Scott Davine (brown belt), Romulo from the Big Island and Relson. Egan and Enson were at Grappling Unlimited.
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Severn’s knowledge of subs was rudimentary. He was able to use them on fighters who had little to no knowledge of subs and sub defense.
Cool that must have been some good training, Phil brought In Relson for a seminar long ago and it was really good, it must have been cool to train with him
I was talking shit in the garage one day saying that I had enough training to tap anyone as long as I had enough time. Which everyone was shaking their head at because I was a go hard for 3 minute guy and then try to just survive after that. I ended up in Relson’s guard and I said “Watch, I’m going to make Relson tap”. I fucked around with his sleeves for a little bit and then cinched up his left wrist with both of my hands and tapped my own body with his hand three times. Everyone started busting up. Relson promptly swung his leg over my head and locked an armbar in. He laughed after I tapped but he wasn’t laughing when I was fucking around.
We were rolling pretty hard one day and this wrestler kid about 50 lbs lighter than me was pissing me off. I cross-faced him really good when we were rolling through a transition. Relson came to me after the sparring and said “You don poot deh ahhm hard ecross de face lieek dat. K my fren?” “Uh, yes Relson”.
There was some guy from Brazil (never knew his name) that was visiting him. He was there for about a month. That guy told some stories about Relson’s streetfighting back in Brazil. “We don call heem el campeon becahhz he da nice guy you know. He nice guy now, but back in Brahzeel he naht de nieece guy you see. He tuff like nailz dat guy.”
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Awesome man, he had a story at the seminar about being provoked and eventually ending up having a guys back face down and rubbing his face in the pavement, it was during the self defense portion
People shitting on Ken… He actually tested himself where it was in public… Unlike Rickson.
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I wasn’t there for it but Scott (the brown belt) told me about a guy who came to the UH class to take the Gracie Challenge.
The class is just about to get started and the guy comes in. Apparently he wants to fight with weapons or some shit and wants to fight on the pavement. Relson tells him that he will fight the guy with no weapons and wherever he wants to.
The guy agrees and leaves to go get something. Relson goes to the front of the class and leads the stretching / calisthenics. EVERYONE keeps looking back at the door. Relson just goes about teaching the class. Never even looked at the door. The guy never came back.
A bunch of us from the class went to a NHB “tournament” at this run down bar. Literally wrestling mats unrolled on the floor and some weak ass posts with weak ass ropes. Kid from Waianae won it;. Kawiki Pa’aluhi. Warm up in the bathroom. In between the tournament and the finals they literally ask people in the crowd if the want to fight. A Marine gets in the ring and challenges anyone. A local guy puts down his beer and nachos and gets in the ring. “K den, we go!” and the Marine proceeds to pound the SHIT out of the local guy. Then the finals start. Crazy shit. Fights in the parking lot.
Relson forbids anyone but blue belts or above to fight which pretty much eliminates everyone Hahahaha. One of the guys is knocked out and the ref is like disinterested in doing anything. Relson literally jumps up next to the ring yelling “STOP THE FIGHT!”.
Good times.
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I just finished the Shamrock biography, so yeah, I’m not being mean and guessing that he was a ton of stuff lol
One of the main things I took from his early Pancrase years is how little real training those guys actually had. The idea that they were highly trained catch sub specialists is mostly just myth making. They were just pro-wrestlers who knew some basic subs and thought they could differentiate their org. by just beating each other up for real and cranking on shit.
It’s amazing how far Ken actually got with no actual high level training in pretty much anything. He was not a real wrestler, not a striker, didn’t have deep submission knowledge. He was just a bad motherfucker that liked to fight and was game to go.
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i thought ken was a high school and collegiate wrestler? made it to the Olympic trials.
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Wow, really? I need to read that. I was under the impression they were good catch guys, like the takada dojo guys were. Saku and Tamura are legit grapplers
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I’ve heard him say this in interviews. I don’t remember the Olympic trial parts but I might have just forgotten them. I don’t see why he’d have a reason to lie about that.
Regional Olympic trials at the time were an open tournament that anyone could enter.
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I was with you up until the mid part of that. Who did Funaki and Suzuki train under? The story is Shamrock was tapping out to both these guys bcs he didn’t know submissions and then started training with them. There more to it then them just cranking shit
Shamrock broke neck wrestling in senior year of high school and then was introduced to performance enhancers to come back
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Well fuck me then. I’m going to say that I qualified for the Olympic Trials that year.
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This is the story I’ve heard ken tell a few places: about Funaki and Suzuki being way better than him when he started.
Which always made the first Pancrase matches Funaki had with him a little suspect. I think Funaki might have known it was better for Pancrase to have Ken as champion
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Made Relson tap out in BJJ
Qualified for the Olympic Trials with no wrestling background
Clearly you have BJ Penn-level grappling talent. Must be the Polynesian DNA
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Yoshiaki Fujiwara trained under Karl Gotch and he trained Funaki and Suzuki who trained Shamrock
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