10 Painful Wrestling Receipts Caught On Camera
8. Vader Successfully Convinces Ken Shamrock To Ease Up
Ken Shamrock developed into a good wrestler by the standards of the time, particularly since his background didn't help his transition into the squared circle. He was an MMA pioneer who justified his marketing as the 'World's Most Dangerous Man'.
He didn't just have to learn how to bump. He had to learn how not to stove some f*cker's head in.
He did not learn this in his first non-"exhibition" WWF match opposite Vader at In Your House: Cold Day In Hell. Familiar with the worked-shoot genre only, and not the less intensive in-house style, he battered Vader with a series of strikes that he'd barely learned to pull. They were the worst sort of wrestling strikes in that they didn't look great, but seemed really painful. The opposite of what he was asked to do, effectively.
The last of these nasty shots was too much for Vader to take, and this was Vader: a monster of a worker who wasn't unfamiliar with the shoot style nor working snug. Shamrock was so eager that he left his feet, missed the safe part of Vader's face entirely and cracked him right in the back of the skull.
In response, Vader issued a receipt in the form of a clubbing forearm right in the ear, which somehow didn't immediately cauliflower.
Perhaps Shamrock was in "his zone," but regardless, he learned how to bump that day, at least. Vader knocked him clean off his feet.