Kurt was an olympic Gold medalist and certainly had a better wrestling pedigree than Brock. When those two used to go head to head in the WWE Kurt was the only guy who could get Brock's respect and he simply out wrestled him time and again during training sessions. Both Haas and Bejamin had wrestling backgrounds. Although Benjamins was at a higher level. Coupled with his natural talent and athleticism this reflected in their performances as the gimmick created for Haas and Benjamin as Kurt's protege's ended with Haas's depature from the WWE. What many fail to realise is theres a ton of guys in the WWE with legit backgrounds in MMA. Pretty much any of them have the right base to be successful assuming they get into the sport early.
I would've loved to seen The Great Khali in the UFC. Overhead Chops his way to the World Title Fucccck I would love to have seen that. [ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKSiChEuTng[/ame]
Blackman and Shamrock used to work together. He could have followed the same route as Ken although Ken had a much better pedigree and was a serious submission wrestler when he was in Pancrase. Didnt Blackman open up an MMA school some years back? Im not sure precisely what his background was but i do know he's been practising MMA for some time.
You're kidding right? Khali was garbage. I know he had some obscure background in some Indian wrestling discipline. But other than that he was just a side show. Massive massive dude like Giant Silva which Vince loves. Iv yet to be able to understand a word that man ever said.
Would have thought a lot of the Japanese ones would have a better base. Yuji Nagata might have done okay if his first two fights hadn't been against peak Cro Cop and Fedor.atsch
There's an emphasis in Japanese Pro-Wrestling for guys to have tried their hands at MMA. Takayama also had a baptism of fire but thats pretty much the Japanese way.
Agreed, I think in all the Lesnar hype people forget that Sakuraba is by far the best transition from pro wrestling to MMA.