Well, it seems that the two UFC veterans, along with their lawyers, were able to settle the matter the old fashion way…in the ring! Yes, the two will battle it out in Japan in Pride in the near future. No date has been set, but both men seem happy with how this one will end.

More info in the upcoming issue of FCF.

Here is a look back at the two sides of the story…

A little testosterone got-a-pumping outside the ring a few weeks ago between two UFC veterans, Ken Shamrock and Mark Hall at the King of the Cage. No, the two had never met in the Octagon before this night, but the beating transpired between two friends-well, used to be friends, over…well, that I’m still not clear on. One thing is for sure, Hall did get to feel Shamrock’s fury, after what Shamrock claims was a head-butt by Hall that set things in motion. I was present at the show, but did not witness the altercation and I was told conflicting stories. The one thing that is for sure, like always, we here at FCF will let the fighters tell their account of what transpired that evening.

Mark Hall

I was talking to a fighter Eric that I know, who fought in my show and I said, "I have to use the rest room, can you excuse me?" And he goes, "I got to go too." The show was going to start in a half-hour and I wanted to get to the bathroom first. Anyway, I went down to the bathroom and I noticed a big group of people congregating in the entrance by the hallway to go into the bathroom. As I walked by, I noticed Ken out of the corner of my eye–over there giving an interview to a rolling camera. I just kept walking to the bathroom and he leaves the camera and comes over to me. He said something like, "What are you calling my house for?" I go, "I’ll talk to you when I finish using the restroom." He started looking over my shoulder and kind of looking back at everyone else and then he goes, "Come over here," like he was going to talk to me. Like when someone puts their hand on your back and says, "Come over here, away from everybody, and let’s talk." It was like one of those and then he kind of gets in front of me and my back was towards everyone else. As far as I can remember, he hit me so hard, just about that time he unloaded his whole right hand right in my face as we were walking over to where he wanted to talk to me. I took the whole thing, all his power and everything right in my face, my tooth went through my lip, all the way through my lip, I had stitches on the outside, stitches on the inside, my nose was all busted up, my eye. I’ve had 8 fights in the Octagon and I never lost a drop of blood, and I didn’t fight no slouches.

After he hit me one time, I went down and my head hit the ground real hard because I had a knot on the front of my head and he jumped on me and then he elbowed me and kneed me and I don’t know what else. Eric and 2 other witnesses told me it was just a mad attack on me, like he was trying to kill me. I was out. I started coming to and I got back up on my knees and I noticed he was still like hitting me, raining the elbows down on my head and kneeing me on the side of the head. The left side of my head was real sore and someone said he stomped my head when I went down and stuff like that. Then he backed off and I sat there a second and looked up and looked around. I was real dazed, but I just started to try and get up…and I got up and I looked up at him and he goes, it was like he was talking in slow motion, he goes, "Get outside, let’s go outside." Cause right behind him was an exit door, an exit exterior door to go outside. I kind of looked at him and kind of looked over at everybody else that was standing over and I noticed they were all his guys. Eddie Millis, Vernon White and all those guys were standing over. They were all his guys that were around him and they were just blocking the entrance. They were just blocking Eric from coming through. They had blocked it off and they were trying to block the roaming camera and everything and even they were going, "Take it outside. Take it outside." "Oh, you want to take it outside now, after you already ambushed me." There is no honor in that. Like the odds were against him-no, I don’t think so.

Then I go, "Somebody get the security over here. I was just ambushed by Ken Shamrock. Ken Shamrock just hit me and hurt me. I need security over here." Then finally the security came. They grabbed me. Didn’t even touch him. Grabbed me and practically just dragged me in the office. So, I am in the office and they go, "What happened? What happened? What happened?" I am going, "He hit me. He sucker punched me." I guess they went outside. I go, "I want the cops called now." Then they called the cops. While the cops were there, they asked me what happened. I go, "He sucker punched me." I guess after the cops went out there, I guess they asked Ken what happened. He had like… him and 15 of his guys that said I head-butted him. Then the cop came back and goes, "Well you got 3 guys that say he sucker punched you and he’s got 15 who say you head-butted him, so we can’t do nothing about it." Obviously, you head-butted him. I go… I told him, "Whatever dude, I didn’t head-butt him. If I would have head-butted him, he would have been the one on the ground in a bloody mess; and further more, I don’t fight like that. I am an honorable fighter." I am retired anyway. I haven’t trained for a year and half now. I am totally 100% retired. I haven’t had a fight for over a year and a half, but I haven’t trained for over a year, so I am completely out of shape. I even have high blood pressure right now. He is getting ready for a fight. He’s all juiced up. He’s on steroids.

I know several incidents over the years that constituted much, much worse punishment against other people than he gave me, but he never did it. In Ultimate Ultimate, he was lined up in the second round to fight Tank Abbott. Tank Abbott taunted him, did everything. Tank Abbott signed his name across Ken’s face with a real thick marker on all the posters, talked about his students, talked about him, even talked about his wife and he wouldn’t do anything. He was scared to death to go out and fight with Tank. I saw the whole thing, I was there; I was backstage. If you remember, I had a fight in that show. He had a chance to go out there and settle the score with Tank Abbott in the octagon. What did he do? Huh, dude he backed out of a fight and he wanted to take it outside, out back. Now Ken Shamrock had 30 guys out there, Tank Abbott walked out with like 9. What is up with that? He is a bully. Tank Abbott is not going to walk out into an ambush. He went over, got in his van and left. The point is, Ken Shamrock, he has no honor. There is no honor. He is a bully. A bully is defined as someone who won’t fight if he thinks he might get hurt.

It is a way over-reaction…to the level of what happened. It was strictly business between me and him and it should have been handled that way, but he wants to take the law into his own hands and handle it his way like a barbarian, like a crazed maniac, like a steroid junkie. That is it, he is a bully. If he thinks that he might get hurt, he won’t fight you. All I could just think of, is he is scared of me because, why would he sucker punch me? I have never sucker punched anyone in my whole life, ever. I would never do that. I don’t care what they did to me.

I talked with Ken and he doesn’t understand why you called his wife on the phone and called her "a fucking whore", "a cunt", "a lying bitch"…
No, no I didn’t–he understands very fully why I called her. If he wants to have his wife answer their business line and talk and handle all his business. Well, then he is going to have his wife handle all his business, not just the pleasant calls. When you deal with business, they are not all nice calls. It was nothing that constituted to what he did to me. There is no reason to ever attack another human being like that, ever.

What is going to be the outcome of this?
I don’t know what the outcome is going to be. We will see. I am not going to speculate on it right now. Why won’t he fight Don Frye? Why don’t he get in at his own level? Why does he have to try and build his reputation back up on mid-level guys like me? These are a lot of questions that have to be asked. How can you respect him when he has never even won an Ultimate Ultimate? He has never even won an Ultimate Fighting Championship? How can you even respect a guy who got to fight all those Super-fights, that never deserved it? He is one of the most overrated fighters that ever stepped into the octagon. He fought the ranks of Felix Mitchell. It took him 6 minutes to put Felix Mitchell away if you remember. I beat Felix Mitchell in 2 minutes. He fought Christophe Leninger-oh my God, it was a joke. He thinks that because he has that Shamrock name, that he can do anything he wants. I know for a fact, he doesn’t even need to have his hands on that Olympics thing that is going on. Anything with the Olympic name on it, it can’t have any dirt on it or any partiality. I had a friend of mine fight in it and it was totally worked. The whole thing was fixed. The whole thing was fixed towards the Lion’s Den. He should never be able to do anything like that. Just because his name is Ken Shamrock, he thinks he can do any freaking thing he wants. He thinks he can move into an area-dude I’ve been here 15 years. He thinks he can move into an area, in anybody’s backyard and put them down, wipe them down and do anything he wants, and he can’t. You can’t do stuff like that to other people and the good always wins. I can tell you right now, he’s only incriminating his own self with doing what he is doing. People, even the fans don’t accept stuff like that-it ain’t right.

I go to the back where the bathrooms are, because Eddie [Millis] is there and Shark Tank and some of the guys are there and I said, "Hey man, what’s up?" Talking to different people. I got quite a good applause when I came in the door. People were happy I was there. I was happy to be there, it was a good time. I walked back–the fights hadn’t started yet, I went to the back by the bathrooms and ramp standing in the hallway; it was quite a big hallway. Eddie is there, a bunch of people standing around there. I see people coming wanting to interview me. I am interviewing, and all of a sudden I see this crowd starting to rumble a little bit and I look up and there is Mark Hall and he has 2 big dudes coming behind him and Vernon was there with me and I said Vernon, "Keep everybody back." So, I walked away from whomever I was talking to, towards the back of the hall and as I turned around Mark Hall was right in my face and he was going, "Fuck you, motherfucker, you are a fucking liar." I am like going-I mean really, now I am pissed don’t get me wrong. I am fucking hot. First of all because of what he did to my wife and I am standing there just looking at him and I am thinking to myself in slow motion. Who is this guy? Who does he think he is? I mean what is he? Godzilla or what? I mean, did he get tougher than when I last saw him? I mean I am just thinking. So, all these things are going through my mind, the next thing I know is, "Bang," and it was reaction after that. He head-butted me. Why? Find out when you talk to him why. What does he think that I did to him that he is just so mad about?

After the fact that he came up and he insulted me, and then I nailed him and held him down. He got up off the ground because the security came. I held him down for a while, pushed him against the wall, hold him down, he kept trying to get up, I kept pushing him back down. Security came and they said, "Let him up, let him up." I said you better keep him away from me because he keeps trying to get back up. So, I backed off. He got up, he seen the security there and played to the security obviously. He said, "I am going to sue you, you cheap-shotted me." I was like, "Yeah, okay Mark, whatever." Then it just dawns on me, as I look at the whole thing; it is exactly what he wanted. Unfortunately for him, he head-butted me. If he hadn’t head-butted me, and I would’ve hit him, then he would have had some sort of little case. But because he got in my face and I didn’t bite on him. I was just standing there. "Who are you?" After the head-butt, then I defended myself.

What do you think triggered this?
It was awhile back-there was an event that he put on-there was a Simmons Mattress Company. They were the ones actually putting up some of the money, I guess. I don’t know all of the details. I was contacted by Mark, and this guy was going to send a limo and pick me and Tina [Ken’s wife] up and we were going to go down there and do some radio interviews. Basically the deal was that Simmons Mattress Company would give us a bed set. You know… big deal $2,000, whatever. Big deal, so I said alright, because I’m into helping the fights. I go to some of the events and I don’t make any money when I go. I don’t ask for any money. I just want a front row seat, sit down, I’ll do some commentating for them and have a good time and help promote it and at the same time get some of my fighters in there. It is one of those deals. So I go up there and I am sick as a dog first of all. I am throwing up in the limo going there and throwing up on the way back. I had that flu thing. I wasn’t going to go for one, because I didn’t agree with the way the rules were set up. It was elbows and head butts and all that stuff. The way the stuff was promoted on the poster was that it was the bloodiest, whatever. But, I said whatever, I’ll help out, I know Mark, I like him, I’ll go help him out. I didn’t know the Simmons guy at all.

The limo picks me up; we go up we do the radio interviews, 2 or 3 of them. He seems like a really nice guy. Mark is with us, everybody is happy. We get in the limo, I go home, it’s late. I am supposed to go to Vegas with my wife. I can’t go I am sick, I am in bed for 3 days after that. Maybe 2 or 3 weeks after this thing-I don’t even know how long it is. I am out of town. My wife gets a call from Mark Hall and he is screaming at her, yelling at her, calling her "a fucking whore", "a cunt", "a lying bitch." If anybody knows Mark, you just think he is a nice guy, he is a real easygoing guy. So, my wife is going, "This isn’t Mark-whoever this guy is." By the end of the phone call, she’s crying, but not to him…but she is screaming at him, Mark was saying he was going to kick my ass, he is going to ruin me, he is going to come down to the Lion’s Den.