Ken Shamrock says WWE didn't fully know what to do with him during his time with the company.
Shamrock, a renowned UFC fighter even before he came to WWE, debuted for the company in 1997, and he became a featured star during his run. He feuded with names like Vader, Bret Hart, and The Rock, and while he won the WWE Intercontinental Championship, he never reached genuine main-event status. Shamrock left the company in 2000 and went on to star in TNA in its early days. He also returned to the MMA world and continued to build his impressive list of accolades.
Speaking with Steve Fall on Ten Count, Shamrock reflected on his WWE run. He described how the company had stars like "Stone Cold" Steve Austin, The Rock, and The Undertaker, and it felt like there were a limited number of roles at the top of the card. He shared his belief that he'd be a top star in any other generation, but because he was with WWE during the Attitude Era, he was one of the wrestlers the company didn't commit to.
“I think that there’s a few guys that were writers there, and you hear it all the time when people talk about how they fell short with really doing anything with myself or even a few other people. They just didn’t know what to do with me. They already created ‘Stone Cold’, they created the Bret Hart, they created this Attitude Era type thing. But it was almost like they just never really put me in that position to be that guy, like the guy that brought the attitude. So it just felt like every single time I would start to do something, it was almost like they had so much going on that I just wasn’t one of the important roles. It was almost like it was The Rock and Stone Cold and the Undertaker and Mankind. Don’t get me wrong, those guys were huge. Any other generation, I probably would have been right up there. I would have been out there in a main thing. But because there were so many guys that they had roles for, there was probably about seven or eight of us that were in that era that they just didn’t really have a commitment to. They just didn’t commit to really finishing off whatever it is or storylines that we were doing. They would involve us because we were an important piece to be involved, but we we were never the main focus of the storylines," Shamrock said.
Shamrock then noted that the writers didn’t know what to do with him due to his background as a legitimate fighter, but they eventually figured it out for stars like Kurt Angle, Ronda Rousey, and Brock Lesnar. He stated that he was used to build other people up during his time with the company.
“You see what they did with Brock, you see what they did with Goldberg, and Kurt Angle [and] Ronda Rousey. You’ve seen it. But it was almost like, because I was the first. I’m the one that opened the door to all this, they didn’t know what to do. I think after I was there, these other ones came in, and somebody figured out how to use it. Like wow, these guys are real, let’s use it. But when I came there, it was almost like I was this eye candy, but they didn’t build a story around it. It was kind of like, let’s use him to build other people," he said.
In the same interview, Shamrock discussed potentially returning to WWE. Check out his comments here.
Shamrock previously stated that he belongs in the WWE Hall of Fame, but the decision isn't up to him. More information is available here.
IMPACT World Champion Josh Alexander recently described how he asked Shamrock for permission to use the ankle lock. Click here to see what he had to say.
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