Shamrock - The Most Dangerous Man in the World

BEYOND THE LION’S DEN
The Life, The Fights, The Techniques
(Tuttle Publishing, 288 pages)
by Ken Shamrock with Erich Krauss

KEN Shamrock has led the kind of life that many of us won't dare to dream of. But perhaps one day, Hollywood will make a movie about him. Meanwhile, Ken's happy teaching the young the many ways of pinning an opponent to the ground, and they are paying him for all those lessons.
IF YOU are a pacifist, or contemplating on entering the seminary, this is one
book you should avoid at all costs.
Ken Shamrock is not the kind of man whose life you would want to read about.
He was born with a mean streak and had to punch his way through to “see the
light”.
Considering his early years, it is a wonder that he’s not on Death Row or
resting eternally beneath a grave with the epitaph “Here lies a man who
fought himself and others to death.”
Fortunately, Shamrock’s life story does not have a tragic ending. He’s
very much alive and literally kicking. His training centre, aptly called
Lion’s Den, is today a self-defence cum martial arts institution that churns
out some of the best fighters in America.
There can only be two results upon completion of reading this coffee-table
book. One, physically tensed and two, emotionally brutalised. If you are a
yoga or qigong practitioner, you may yet be unaffected by this semi-
autobiography accompanied by pictorial chapters of 70 techniques of
effectively taking down a mugger or defending yourself successfully against a
bigger and meaner guy.
This book does not leave its reader in a peaceful state of mind. Shamrock
started early in life by surviving with his fists. In his tough
neighbourhood, the kid who did not know how to defend himself either grew up
psychologically scarred or regularly got beaten senseless.
In Shamrock’s case, his raw physical energy was backed up by a constantly
uncontrollable rage that frequently put many an opponent to flight. A boy who
grew up hating almost everybody was bound to learn violence at first hand.
This Ultimate Fighting Champion (UFC) and World Wrestling Federation (WWF)
fighter earned his spurs during a stint with the Japan-based Universal
Wrestling Federation (UWF).
It was in Japan that Shamrock learnt some of his deadliest moves like kick-
boxing blows and submission holds. For those who are groping in the dark
about these terms, they simply mean that if you are caught on the receiving
end of these blows or holds, you either admit defeat quickly or you will hear
the crunching of your bones (hands, legs or arms).
This book is neither recommended for anybody born with a violent temper
nor is it suggested reading for individuals with weak physical constitution.
For the latter, the strenuous training can mean an unexpected heart attack.
For the former, a long jail term could be just around the corner.
However, Beyond the Lion’s Den can also serve as a good reference for
some of those intricate moves employed by professional wrestlers to
neutralise their opponents in front an audience of thousands, consisting of
screaming, half-insane individuals.
Not all professional wrestling matches are staged for general
entertainment as Shamrock points out. He has a medical record of broken limbs
to testify to the authenticity of innumerable matches that became rather
violent. Mad Max would have been quite proud of Shamrock’s professional
career.
Beyond all those graphic and detailed descriptions of breaking bones and
getting assaulted to the point of near death, this book also shines a path
into Shamrock’s character that tells of a boy with a very bad temper who, by
the grace of God, has managed to live a fairly stable and happy life now.
That’s the redeeming feature of Shamrock’s book. Now at 41, he finally
tells the world, in a no-holds-barred manner, that he had gleefully beaten a
number of people into unconsciousness and he himself had been thumped into
oblivion.
This book labelled him as “the world’s most dangerous man”. Even though
commercially, it’s good advertisement, few of Shamrock’s opponents in the
ring or outside would actually dare to refute that statement.
This book of violent beginnings, a brutal career and middle-aged
redemption is an interesting read. However, you have to control yourself
because it tends to awaken your predatory instincts. If you become too
engrossed in some of its chapters, you will need to reach out for a holy book
or at least a Chicken Soup book and read a few chapters to neutralise its
insidious effects.