Frank Shamrock

Control21:

This is admittedly a very unorthodox nomination. Frank Shamrock only has one traditional pro-wrestling match under his belt against Daisuke Nakamura in U-Style. Albeit, I think that was a very good match. In order to push his nomination to meet the threshold, I will throw in a few of his matches in Pancrase and RINGS that were shoots, but I think they are close enough to pro-wrestling to where considering them wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world. Frank Shamrock had two really great matches against Kiyoshi Tamura and Tsuyoshi Kohsaka in RINGS that were technically brilliant and took place under a pro-wrestling setting with nominally pro-wrestling rules. His Pancrase work also mostly took place under Pancrase’s pro-wrestling ruleset. So why nominate him? If you consider solely in-ring work and performance, Shamrock is a technician on Tamura’s or Kohsaka’s level and could entertain while fighting for real. It’s a nebulous concept, but consider it a trial balloon for the idea that Pancrase work and other shootfights in a pro-wrestling setting should be considered. I think if you take the fact that Pancrase was a concept to take pro-wrestling back to its competitive catch roots while not abandoning the idea of entertainment value, Frank Shamrock ends up as a guy very much worth considering. FWIW, there’s some discussion about whether or not some or all of Frank Shamrock’s early Pancrase stuff was worked, although this is hearsay that occasionally pops up in the discourse about Pancrase.

vs Allan Goes (5/13/1995)

vs Minoru Suzuki (1/28/1996)

vs Osami Shibuya (4/8/1996)

vs Bas Rutten (5/16/1996)

vs Tsuyoshi Kohsaka (9/26/1997)

vs Kiyoshi Tamura (4/23/1999)

vs Daisuke Nakamura (11/23/2005)