Ken Shamrock did an interview with MMA Weekly Radio and said he was in the middle of a lawsuit with UFC. He said they had him under contract which prohibited him from fighting elsewhere, and then they eventually released him when he had one fight left on his deal.
I've said this many times, but if you look at what Ken Shamrock has meant to UFC since day one, that's bullshit. He said he knew from experience that Dana lied. “He lied to my agent, he lied to me, I know he’s lied to other fighters. If it’s anything like what happened to me, he basically just straight out lied to Randy.” He said he was injured and needed time off to recover and then they just released him. He said they didn't give him any sort of explanation, he was just gone. He said the same thing had happened to Tito, and even though Tito had a bad attitude he'd meant a lot to the company over the years. That's undoubtedly true. He said he was shopping himself around and hoping to fight in 2008 (see Strikeforce section for more).
So after that, MMA Weekly talked to Dana to get his side. "Ken Shamrock has been gone from the UFC for a long time now," he said. "He’s been with the IFL and I think we all see what’s going on over there, so now Ken is stirring up some shit. First of all, I have never disrespected Ken Shamrock. It has been the exact opposite actually. Inducted him in the Hall of Fame, brought him back, think about this. I brought Ken into the UFC to fight Tito after Pride cut him after losing to Don Frye. Before that Ken beat a guy named Sam Adkins, whose record is seven wins, 19 losses and two draws. So when Ken comes into the UFC, he has a ton of financial problems. We help him clean up all his financial problems. He fights Tito and loses and then we help Ken fix his knee. We get his knee rebuilt. So now we’re sitting around thinking we invested all this money in this guy, we have to find somebody this guy can actually beat. So we get him a fight with Kimo. He beats Kimo. Then we get him a fight with 185-pound Rich Franklin. Ken gets knocked out in the first round. He leaves the UFC, goes back to Pride and gets knocked out in the first round by 185-pound Sakuraba." Well, to be fair, that was a fucked-up finish and I think everyone in PRIDE knew it at the time. Ken went down and the ref stopped it despite the fact that it was very clear Ken hadn't been KO'd or even rattled that badly. "I still bring him back into the UFC as a coach on The Ultimate Fighter' season three," Dana said. "He actually comes out looking like the fucking bad guy against Tito! Which is amazing. I don’t know how you fuck that up. So at the end of the show he has to fight Tito again. He gets knocked out so bad in the first round of this crazily hyped up Tito fight that the fans are actually pissed off. So I have to go back and make a third fight cause I think it’s the right thing to do, make good for the fans. So Ken gets another huge payday to fight the same guy over again for a fight that should have never happened again. Ken’s last 10 fights, he’s three wins and seven losses and he’s lost four fights in a row. The last time Ken Shamrock beat anyone even considered in the top ten was 13 years ago, in 1995, when he beat Dan Severn. This guy thinks that I fucked him? Give me a break. Nobody wants to see 43-year-old Ken Shamrock get beat up again." He fails to mention that Shamrock vs. Tito in 2002 did a shockingly high 150,000 buys and convinced the Fertittas that this thing had a chance of being a success; that his fight with Franklin did a 1.9 rating and 2.6 million viewers and caused Spike TV to send out an ecstatic press release touting, among things, the 18-34 males 3.3 rating that was up 562% from whatever was in the time slot the year before; that Ortiz vs. Shamrock 2 did a record-breaking 775,000 buys; and that Ortiz and Shamrock 3 on free TV did 5.7 million viewers for their fight and a 9.7 rating in males 18-25, which forced the mainstream media for the first time to sit up and take notice, thus setting UFC up for where they are today. Ken Shamrock should have a fucking pension for LIFE from these people.
From f4wonline.com