Ken Shamrock vs Owen Hart (WWF, 7-26-1998)

WWF Fully Loaded, Calgary, Alberta, Canada

Fully Loaded was actually in Fresno, but this match was taped in Calgary at the Hart Family Dungeon, aka Stu Hart’s basement.

The first shot here is Owen pacing in the Dungeon with special referee Dan Severn there, calm as can be. Then we cut to the door down to the basement swinging open, the camera on the stairs below, and Ken Shamrock makes his dramatic imbecile entrance, breathing heavy and punching himself in the head and going DEEYASSH. That’s how you knew he was in The Zone.

This is a submission match. No ring, just down in the Dungeon. Owen in street/workout clothes, and Shamrock is in shorts but has to show off his abs. Obvi.

You gotta give these lads credit, they knew very well that this had to look at least somewhat decent, and they go in on the shit they’re doing. The grappling is hard and as believable as you’re gonna get on a basement floor, and when Owen takes a front kick to the chest, he HURLS himself into a wall, then bounces back right into a hard throw from Shamrock.

Shamrock bouncing Owen off the walls again, and Hart goes to the groin and hits a spinning heel kick, then mounts Shamrock and batters him with right hands, then lays in a hard kick to the chest and puts Shamrock’s head into the wall repeatedly. Lawler seemingly genuinely cackles at this, befuddling JR.

Owen hits a German, then mounts and rains down more rights. Shamrock turns that over and throws. Both guys defending well in those situations for now. Owen gets bounced off the walls again, and then uses a water pipe to swing off of, kicking Shamrock into the wall and hitting a huracanrana.

Hart gets shoved into some weights on the wall, knocking a few off the shelves. Hart tries to grab one and hit Shamrock with it, but Ken blocks and keeps tossing Owen around the basement.

Shamrock really just beating Owen up now, and goes for his own water pipe rana, which gets him power bombed. Owen hiplocks Shamrock upwards, bouncing him off that pipe, then lifts him up and puts a hole in the ceiling with Shamrock’s head. (There are plenty of holes there are already, it’s fine.)

Owen gets the Sharpshooter on, but he manages to power out. “Shamrock would not quit!” JR shouts. “He never has!” That’s not true. “I don’t think he ever will!” Shamrock had five losses in MMA at this point, four by submission. But he actually never submitted in a fight again, to be fair. He just started getting knocked out a lot.

We get the old double whammy, as Shamrock accidentally knocks out Severn with a kick, and then Owen very purposely knocks out Shamrock with a dumbbell to the skull. Owen then loosely grabs Shamrock by the head with his left arm, and uses his right to make the unconscious Shamrock “tap out.” Severn comes to and sees the tap, and calls the match.

“You’re nothin’!” Owen shouts. “I rule in the Dungeon! I did it all by myself!”

This is a great novelty match, I’d actually forgotten how truly wild they got down there, how much fun it is, and the fact they kept it around five minutes to do what they could and get out before they overdid it. Hart had, frankly, become fairly irrelevant in the WWF landscape by this point; they had a chance post-Montreal to really do something with him, maybe, as a vengeful babyface, but Shawn was destined for WrestleMania XIV with Austin, and so instead they started feeding Owen to HHH, which killed any momentum Owen might have had, and eventually led him to another heel turn. He was still tremendously talented so you always have room for this guy on the roster, but he’d peaked in the WWF. But over that last year-and-a-half he was there, this little run with Shamrock is definitely a highlight.

Rating: 4/5