2. Ken Shamrock vs Minoru Suzuki II
Ken Shamrock and Pancrase co-founder, Minoru Suzuki, are two of the most important people in the history of mixed martial arts. It was Suzuki, Shamrock, and Masakatsu Funaki who first began experimenting with real fights in Japan during the early 1990s. Shamrock, Suzuki, Bas Rutten, and Funaki all fought on that first Pancrase event from 1993.
Both Shamrock and Minoru Suzuki were pro-wrestlers at the time but had recently begun fighting for real.
At the time of this fight, Shamrock and Royce Gracie had just gone to a draw at UFC 5. Shamrock was also the King of Pancrase champion. Possibly feeling as though losing to Shamrock would make promotion co-founder Suzuki look bad, it is believed a deal may have taken place which allowed Suzuki to defeat Shamrock for the King of Pancrase title in just over two minutes. In Shamrock’s next fight, he defeated Dan Severn for the UFC Superfight title. Suzuki would drop the title to Bas Rutten later that same year.
