Ken Shamrock

He is married to Tonya Shamrock since February 27, 2005. They have three children. This is his second marriage.

Kenneth Wayne Kilpatrick was born at the Robins Airforce Base in Warner Robins, Georgia. He lived there till the age of four.

His father, Richard Kilpatrick, worked in the United States Air Force, and his mother, Diane Kilpatrick was a dancer and a waitress.

Shamrock had three brothers. After his father abandoned the family, his mother married an army aviator, Bob Nance, and they all moved to Napa, California.

Coming from a poor background, it wasn’t easy to fit in his new environment, so Ken, along with his brothers turned to drugs. He also got involved in sports, and played ‘Little League Baseball’ and ‘Pop Warner football’.

He was a natural at athletics, and his stepfather was told by a coach that Ken had amazing skills, and was extraordinarily good at sports.

Between 1990-97, Ken travelled to Japan (where he competed in the’ Universal Wrestling Federation’ and ‘Pro Wrestling Fujiwara Gumi’) and Miami to exhibit his skills, and was given various tryout names like Wayne Shamrock, Vince Torelli, and ‘Mr Wrestling’, while he was also introduced to MMA style of wrestling.

On February 24, 1997, he entered the WWF (now WWE) as a fan favourite at ‘Monday Night Raw’. On March 23, 1997, he was titled by BBC as ‘The World’s Most Dangerous Man’ due to a submission match between Bret Hart and Steve Austin at Wrestlemania 13.

At WM 14, he debuted against Vermon White and won. Later, he had a bitter feud with Bret Hart and Vader. He got his first pay-per-view with Bret Hart whom he challenged for the WWF Championship match

1998, he went into a feud with ‘WWF Intercontinental Champion’ The Rock. He lost to him in Royal Rumble via disqualification, but defeated him via submission at WM XIV, and became a ‘WWF Intercontinental Champion’.

In June 1998, he won the ‘King of the Ring’ via eliminating Mark Henry, The Rock, Jeff Jarrett.

Ken made his UFC debut on November 12, 1993 against Royce Gracie for the first UFC event-UFC 1. The ‘light weight’ Royce made Ken choke and tap within 60 seconds.

In 1994, Ken swore to avenge Royce in UFC 2, but broke his hand, and Royce Gracie won the match. In UFC 3, on September 9th, 1994, Gracie withdrew due to dehydration.

In 1995, Shamrock finally faced Royce in a match that became a draw with Shamrock lying on top of Gracie.

On July 14, 1995, he faced UFC 5 champion Dan Severn to become the reigning champion of UFC at UFC6. The ‘big fight’ between the ‘best of the best’ ended when Severn walked out of the door, since all the attention was focused on Shamrock, and he became the first ‘UFC Super Fight Champion’ (later replaced by UFC Heavyweight Championship).

In 1994, he won the ‘Pancrase Championship’ in Japan. A year later, he lost the title to Suzuki.