UFC Hall of Famers Royce Gracie (48 yrs old) and Ken Shamrock (51 yrs old) will face each other in a trilogy fight on Bellator in February 19, 2016 in Hosuton, Texas.
The fight has provoked a reaction from fellow Hall of Famer Dan Severn (57 yrs old) who ended his career in January 2013. Severn has asked for fights against Royce Gracie, Shamrock, and Mark Coleman, all of whom he’d fought in the ’90s.
With the public interest in old-timers’ fights in MMA, Severn plans to come out of retirement.
He told MMA Junkie:
“I think there is an appetite for, I don’t know, call it a masters division, like they have in other sports,” Severn said. “And as long as its done right and those masters compete against other masters, I think it’s something people want to see. You just can’t put the 50-year-old guy against a 25- or 30-year-old guy, because the reality is that no matter how good your skills are, they are diminishing.”
About taking on the winner of Gracie and Shamrock?
“Well, they were on my to-do list in the first place,” Severn said. “So sure, I’d do it.”
When Royce Gracie faced Dan Severn at UFC 4, it was a 185lb fighter facing a 260lb fighter. Severn spent 15 minutes hammering Royce on the ground before getting caught in a triangle.
Severn recently said in an interview with Submission Radio, that he saw Helio Gracie almost throw in the towel and that he (Severn) may have given Royce the victory by feeling sorry for him.
“When I tell people I was more torn with my conscience then ever with an opponent, most people will probably never understand that,” said the former pro wrestler. “You know, during the course of that match I’m actually looking at – I’m a big believer that the eyes are a windows into a person’s soul – I’m staring right through his soul and he’s looking over at his Dad outside the cage wall there, and I could read exactly what’s going through his mind.
He’s saying ‘Dad I’m hanging in here, but if you were to throw in that towel I wouldn’t hold it against you’, and then I went from Royce’s eyes, I looked over to Helio outside the cage wall, Helio is looking at me, he’s got the towel in his hands, he brings the towel up, crosses his arms and then just shakes his head ‘no’. And I’m thinking to myself, you old bastard, you’d let me kill your kid out here for Gracie Jiu Jitsu wouldn’t ya? Well nobody knows that Dan Severn is out here tonight, so I’ll just simply say, did I tap out because someone beat me, or did I tap out because I refused to do what I had to do to another human being? I’m the only person that can answer that question. All I’ll simply say is, from UFC number 4 to UFC number 5, I took 32 days out of my life and I trained to become a No Holds Barred fighter, and I destroyed the field.”
Watch the fight for yourself. What do you think?
