WWE held its Brawl For All tournament in 1998, taking wrestlers and pitting them against each other in legit fights. The rules would vary throughout the tournament was takedowns started to become banned and fights would turn into boxing contests.
Former UFC fighter Dan Severn would have been a heavy favorite, but he pulled out of the tournament after a first round victory, believing he had nothing to prove.
Ken Shamrock was on the WWE roster at the time, but he declined to participate.
“I was asked. I said no,” Shamrock told Chris Van Vliet on Insight. “I got paid big money. Big, big money to fight (in the UFC). Now they’re asking me to do this thing for free. I think anybody who has been involved in pro wrestling understands how hard it is to gain trust in the locker room. If guys don’t trust you, they’re not going to work for you. They’re not going to allow you to do things that they feel they may get hurt with. That was one of the things that Bret (Hart) really instilled in me, making sure I had a relationship with the locker room. I would go up and say hi to people and shake their hands. Be open to suggestions and building relationships because you’ve got to build trust, and these guys have to trust me to go into the ring with them. Then, they ask me to fight. Now, I’m going to go in there and beat the hell out of these guys, then go back and say, ‘Hey, we’re going to do a pro wrestling match.’ I felt that was going against the grain of what I was trying to do there.
“I don’t know how much they were paying. 50 grand or something if you won it. I’m thinking, ‘You guys asked me to come here and do a certain thing. We negotiated a contract for that. Now, you want me to actually fight. I’m doing two things now.’ I felt like, ‘This is not for me.’ I am not persuaded by insults and ridicule. People saying, ‘You’re afraid to go against the pro wrestlers. You’re afraid to get in there. You’re afraid of this guy.’ That does nothing. You’re not going to shame me into trying to fight somebody. If I’m going to fight them, I’m going to fight them, and we’re going to negotiate something and we’ll do it. I’m not going to be shamed into fight. It felt like that’s what was trying to happen. Not WWE, the fanbase as a whole. By me saying, ‘No. I’m not going to do that.’ There was that whole scene behind the scenes with people saying, ‘Shamrock is afraid.’ I’m thinking, ‘Wow, how soon people forget.'”
Bart Gunn won Brawl For All, knocking out Bradshaw (JBL), “Dr. Death” Steve Williams, and The Godfather (Charles Wright) along the way.
Gunn was rewarded with a fight against Butterbean at WrestleMania XV. It did not go Gunn’s way.
“Butterbean would have knocked the piss out of me. I have no business boxing that dude,” said Shamrock, who did say that if takedowns were legal, he would have out-grappled Butterbean.
Shamrock was inducted into the UFC Hall of Fame in 2003.
Elsewhere during the interview, Shamrock commented on taking the People’s Elbow. You can find his full comments by clicking here.
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