How Ken Shamrock Was Almost Murdered
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Get ready for an intense tale from the world of professional wrestling as we dive into the harrowing experience of Ken Shamrock, the 'World's Most Dangerous Man,' who faced a life-threatening situation while on the road. In this episode, we explore the chilling story of the UFC Hall of Famer and WWE legend.
You can also visit our site: https://www.sportskeeda.com/wwe
#kenshamrock #wwe #wrestling #sportskeedawrestling
Play now to find out - https://www.sportskeeda.com/wwe/brainbuster-wwe-player-guessing-game
Get ready for an intense tale from the world of professional wrestling as we dive into the harrowing experience of Ken Shamrock, the 'World's Most Dangerous Man,' who faced a life-threatening situation while on the road. In this episode, we explore the chilling story of the UFC Hall of Famer and WWE legend.
You can also visit our site: https://www.sportskeeda.com/wwe
#kenshamrock #wwe #wrestling #sportskeedawrestling
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SportsTranscript
00:00Ken Shamrock is known today as a pioneer of mixed martial arts and a pro wrestler during
00:05the early stages of WWE's peak Attitude Era.
00:08He's a UFC Hall of Famer and a certified ass kicker, but before he became a legend,
00:14he was a young upstart in the pro wrestling scene in the late 1980s wrestling under the
00:19name Vince Torelli.
00:20It's a much cornier name than Ken Shamrock, isn't it?
00:24He's tough as nails and there's no disputing that, but he was involved in an incident on
00:29the road that not only took an entire year out of his career, it nearly killed him.
00:34So let's get into this first of hopefully many editions of Stories from the Road.
00:55Ken Shamrock had a bit of a troubled childhood in the 1960s and 70s.
01:00His childhood saw him run away from home before getting kicked out and eventually finding
01:04a spot in Shamrock's boy's home in California.
01:07A fun little side note, the name Shamrock is a tribute to a man named Bob Shamrock who
01:12would eventually adopt him.
01:14Organized sports saved his life, particularly football and amateur wrestling.
01:19Pro wrestling turned out to be his path of choice and it led him to a place called North
01:23Atlantic Pro Wrestling, a promotion that quickly shut shop.
01:27Ken Shamrock moved to South Atlantic Pro Wrestling and adopted the ring name Vince Torelli.
01:32His colleagues and friends called him Vinny.
01:34This ladies and gentlemen is where the story begins.
01:38October 1989
01:4025 year old Ken Shamrock wasn't even a full year into his run with the South Atlantic
01:44Pro Wrestling promotion and the ugly realities of professional wrestling at the time manifested
01:49itself into a nasty outcome.
01:52When we say nasty, it was quite literally that.
01:55The perpetrators of the story were the Nasty Boys, a name that some of our younger audiences
02:00might not know of.
02:02The Nasty Boys were a pretty big tag team in the 1980s and 90s, but not quite to the
02:07level of the Legion of Doom, Demolition, The Hearts, The Rockers and others of the time.
02:13Still, they found success in their careers becoming WWF World Tag Team Champions and
02:19three time WCW Tag Team Champions.
02:23They were also a part of the South Atlantic Pro Wrestling promotion at the same time as
02:27Ken Shamrock and they were champions there too.
02:30In October 1989, the Nasty Boys were finishing up their obligations with SAPW and set to
02:37move on to the big stage of WWF.
02:41After one of their final shows, the Nasty Boys and other wrestlers like Ken Shamrock
02:46went to one of the bars that they actually allowed the wrestlers.
02:49When we say one of the bars, it was because wrestlers were known to have quite a bit to
02:53drink back in the day and cause trouble wherever they were.
02:56Ken Shamrock was sitting in a bar with his friend, a ring crew member and the man's
03:02girlfriend.
03:03Brian Nobbs and Jerry Saggs of the Nasty Boys also happened to be sitting there.
03:07A bit of a trigger warning because the story involves SA and violence, so if you don't
03:13want to hear about it, you should probably hit that pause button right now.
03:17Brian Nobbs allegedly made comments towards the ring crew member's girlfriend and went
03:21on to inappropriately grab a part of her body and the crew member being in the position
03:26he was didn't want things to escalate.
03:28He could only really say quote, come on man, while his girlfriend made it clear that she
03:33wasn't okay with being touched.
03:34Shamrock stood up for her, but it wasn't enough for the Nasty Boys to stop.
03:38The two of them were like cowardly dogs who would only bark and act brave when they were
03:42around dogs of their own pack.
03:44Similarly, the Nasty Boys weren't afraid to get confrontational when they were together.
03:49Shamrock had enough and made it clear, the next time his friend's girlfriend was touched,
03:52he was going to break Nobbs hand.
03:55Nobbs was a bit of a bar room fighter and although younger than Shamrock by two months,
03:59decided he wanted to test him.
04:01What Shamrock didn't realize before things could escalate badly was that the bartender
04:05was watching and already signaled for the Nasty Boys to be thrown out of the bar.
04:10Still, Shamrock had already thrown his drink at Nobbs and one of the bar bouncers pulled
04:14him into the bathroom and tried to calm him down by telling him that the Nasty Boys had
04:18already been kicked out.
04:19But it wasn't enough for Shamrock to let it go.
04:22Since all the talent in South Atlantic Pro Wrestling were staying in the same motel that
04:26night, Shamrock knew where he needed to go.
04:29So half an hour after the Nasty Boys had gotten kicked out of the bar, Shamrock put on an
04:33act pretending like he had cooled down and he was simply heading out.
04:37But he was going back to the motel and was banging on every door in the early hours of
04:41the morning until he could find the Nasty Boys.
04:45Then he reached the door of the legend, Colonel Robert Parker, a man who was also one of the
04:50bookers for SAPW at the time.
04:53Screaming at the Colonel's face and asking where the Nasty Boys were staying, Parker
04:57had no choice but to point him in the direction of their room, which was the third floor of
05:02their motel.
05:03Shamrock wasn't exactly subtle in his quest to find the Nasty Boys, so by the time he
05:07kicked their door down, they were waiting for him, or at least only Jerry Saggs was.
05:13Brian Nobbs, the man responsible for the essay on the woman in the bar, was lying flat on
05:18the bed unconscious.
05:20After shoving Saggs over the TV set, Shamrock went for Nobbs who got a black eye because
05:25of his attack.
05:26But Saggs would take a metal telephone and smack Shamrock behind his head, knocking him
05:30out cold.
05:32Calling it a bad shot would be a massive understatement.
05:35Turns out, the Nasty Boys hatched a plan where Nobbs was playing possum and pretending
05:39to be unconscious.
05:41Shamrock doesn't remember anything that happened after the phone was smacked behind
05:44his head, but it was bad.
05:46Like a head swelling up like a balloon kind of bad.
05:49Ken Shamrock later revealed that they broke his sternum and eye socket and put him in
05:53a concussion.
05:54He first said quote, they almost killed me end quote, and clarified that he technically
06:00died in the ambulance going to the hospital, but was brought back to life.
06:04It took him almost a whole year to recover from that.
06:07The condition he was in was so gruesome that SAPW Booker Frank Dussek revealed that Shamrock
06:12hardly looked human because of how brutal the attack was.
06:16The Nasty Boys both denied using a phone and claimed that they only used their hands and
06:19feet.
06:20The legendary Colonel Robert Parker, who we mentioned earlier, knew what was happening
06:25and had to intervene and call other wrestlers to stop it from escalating further.
06:29They had to talk the Nasty Boys out of literally killing Ken Shamrock.
06:33Pitbull Gary Wolf, who was also a talent near the scene, said the 5'2 security guard
06:38pleaded with him and others to stop the fight, because he couldn't do it himself.
06:42By the time they arrived, they saw Knobbs was out cold while Brian Saggs was blasting
06:46Ken Shamrock with the telephone.
06:48He dragged Shamrock to the door and screamed that he was going to throw him over the guard
06:52rail that was three stories up.
06:55The people around had to go in and physically tackle Saggs to prevent Shamrock from what
06:59was going to be a certain death.
07:01Gary Wolf said that it doesn't matter if you're the most dangerous man in the world
07:05because if you're drunk, you can't fight.
07:08Shamrock was unfortunately very drunk that night.
07:10Colonel Robert Parker pretty much confirmed that the story was true, except with a few
07:14additional details.
07:16It was the woman who was essayed by Knobbs who came to Parker's door to plead for help
07:20before Shamrock was screaming in his face.
07:23Parker said he had never seen somebody's head as big as Shamrock's did when he was
07:27attacked.
07:28He genuinely thought that Shamrock was going to die and told Saggs to call 911 to help.
07:33He had to be the voice of reason to actually do it.
07:36What he also revealed was that the Nasty Boys previously had to leave a different territory
07:40due to an unspecified problem of a similar nature, which is what brought them to South
07:45Atlantic Pro Wrestling.
07:47To protect the Nasty Boys' careers, Parker and the other talent around got together and
07:52told the same story.
07:53Shamrock was ready to beat Knobbs down and Saggs had to defend him.
07:57That way, neither of them got arrested and in doing so, Parker protected the Nasty Boys'
08:02career.
08:03In reality, as you'll soon find out, he only helped extend it.
08:06The trouble they would bring didn't vanish overnight.
08:09The Nasty Boys and Shamrock went their separate ways, but for a while, other SAPW talent made
08:15sure to sit far away from him because of the reputation he developed as a hothead.
08:20We can only hope that Colonel Robert Parker had good intentions when protecting the Nasty
08:24Boys, because you can very much argue that they didn't deserve to be protected.
08:28But it's an important reminder that this is only one of the known stories back in the
08:32day.
08:33We can't imagine the stuff that happened that was never told.
08:36Holding that much anger in your head isn't a good idea anyway, but to do so for 8 years?
08:41You'd think that Ken Shamrock would explode if he ever saw them again.
08:461998.
08:47The Nasty Boys were gone from WWE for quite a while due to backstage behavior while Ken
08:52Shamrock had been signed to WWE for a year at that point.
08:56Recalling what happened to Hannibal TV, what followed was nothing short of incredible.
09:01Ken Shamrock was in the airport alongside Billy Gunn waiting in line to clock in.
09:05Guess who Shamrock spotted in line?
09:08Brian freaking Knobbs!
09:10In a fit of rage, Ken Shamrock turned into a pressure cooker that was about to explode.
09:15He dropped his bags and his face turned red.
09:18Recognizing Shamrock, who was now much bigger and buffer than he last saw 8 years ago, Knobbs
09:23quickly exited the vicinity.
09:26When Shamrock saw Jerry Saggs, he was about to go after him until Billy Gunn held him
09:30back and pleaded by saying,
09:32Not here, not here!
09:34Jerry Saggs unsurprisingly left at the same pace that Brian Knobbs did.
09:38Billy Gunn, who had never seen a human being get so intense in his life, tried his best
09:43to calm him down.
09:44Other accounts have stated that Owen Hart and Stone Cold Steve Austin tried provoking
09:48the situation, but there is nothing official to confirm that it's true.
09:52When they were walking up to the gate, Ken heard a voice saying,
09:55Hey man, what's wrong with Shamrock man?
09:58Somebody needs to give him a chill pill.
10:01When Shamrock turned around, he saw Jerry Saggs.
10:04Like a man possessed, he went straight to him and even jumped over the seats and spun
10:08Saggs around and he said he was going to kill him!
10:11Saggs had a big bag in his hand and bent it in a way that implied that he was going to
10:15swing it at Shamrock.
10:16He dropped his bag and Shamrock told him to go ahead and that he would give him the
10:20first punch, something he always said he would do if he ever came face to face with Saggs
10:24again.
10:25Saggs' reply was so bizarre that nearly a decade of pent up anger and aggression just
10:30left Ken Shamrock's body.
10:32Jerry Saggs told him,
10:33If you hit me, that's a federal offense.
10:37We can't even imagine what it must have been like to be Ken Shamrock at that moment.
10:41Every feeling of anger and ill will just went up in smoke.
10:44But according to the man himself, he thought, quote, that's it?
10:48After the entire tough persona the nasty boys put on, that's all he was going to say?
10:53End quote.
10:54According to Shamrock, it was a blessing that he never got revenge by physically attacking
10:58Knobbs and Saggs.
10:59All the boys in the WWE locker room were present right then and there to witness what happened.
11:04So in a big way, Shamrock got his revenge without lifting a finger.
11:08Everybody saw how Jerry Saggs became a coward despite talking trash about Shamrock for 8
11:13years since the incident.
11:14Indeed, it was pretty much over for the nasty boys.
11:18They'd still continue wrestling but their years in the big time were over and done with.
11:23In the long run, Ken Shamrock became a much more influential and well remembered name.
11:28For all we know, this could have just been another normal day for wrestlers on the road
11:33in the 1980s and 90s.
11:35Do you remember much about the nasty boys?
11:37Let us know what you think of this story in the comments below.
11:40As always, thanks for watching.