Ken Shamrock was at the receiving end of a knee strike to the groin which went unnoticed by the referee, in his trilogy bout with fellow UFC hall of famer Royce Gracie.
Gracie followed the groin strike, with a knee to face and take him down to finally finish him with strikes on the ground. The fight was stopped after 2:22 min in the first round.
Shamrock upset after the loss, yelled at Gracie inside the cage, saying that he did it on purpose.
This isn’t the first time that Gracie hit an opponent in the groin. In his rematch with Yoshida in Pride, where there was bad blood following the controversial referee stoppage in the first fight, Royce Gracie kicked him in the groin and didn’t even apologise.
At the post fight press conference Gracie stated:
“I’m very happy, that was my first knockout (laughs). But, I was telling Ken, we come from an era where there was no time limit, no weight division, no gloves, no rules, groin shots were allowed. But it did not catch his groin.”
The video says differently. Check it out from this angle:
Rener Gracie, Royce’s nephew said that the problem was that Shamrock didn’t initially react to the groin strike, that’s why the referee didm’t intervene:
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