Ken Shamrock on WWE Owning John Cena & Dwayne Johnson's Names After They Stopped Wrestling (Part 9)

John Cena he did an interview with Shannon sharp where he says that the WWE still owns his name and actually makes money off his movies and other projects do you feel that some of these WWE contracts are somewh predatory to do something like this the fact that he's no longer wrestling and he's completely shifted career but they're still making money off his name seems a bit crazy well I I think the world is Shifting too you're starting to see all these big lawsuits with the NFL and Sunday Ticket and then the UFC just recently got hammered with a a big big um lawsuit so I think the intellectual properties and things of that nature are now starting to turn more favorable towards the athlete so you're starting to see a lot of that change I I've never really agreed with that and that's why whenever I went into pro wrestling I own my name I mean I literally own Ken Shamrock I wasn't going to give that up but when these guys go in there they all are basically built by Vince McMahon they they he has built their character and they have allowed him to build their character so when you do that that's a business proposition that you agreed to well right because the rock just this February got his name back after all these years he finally got the IP rights back to his name and think about how much money he has and the influence he has but they held on to it so was that part of your negotiation did you have to negotiate your name rights at the beginning and you wanted to take them absolutely when I came in I was known as the world's most dangerous man Ken Shamrock obviously the rock thing I carved out in there until later on right but those were all things that I went in with an agent and carved out to make sure that I own my intellectual property a lot of these guys like John Cena and some of them other ones had no intellectual property they were nobody's when they came in and so when they sat down with Vince and the and the organization there they didn't negotiate those things and carve out their rights for their intellectual property they gave them up and that's why they're in the position that they're in I mean did you ever maintain a relationship with Vince over the years not at all no V I was even when I was there I never really had communication with him I dealt with with other people um Vince was working with you know the top obviously the top guys and I was somewhat in the midc card so I never really got to sit down and really talk with him other than in the beginning yeah I remember I interviewed new Jack Rest in Peace by the way did you ever meet him uh a few times yeah few times he was crazy in real life yeah that was real life crazy did you see some of those remember when he what was like 40 feet in the air jump down onto the tables like that slam like cutting his to his face yeah would you say that's the most intense wrestler of all time in terms of just sacrificing everything in that in that ring you mean like mankind yeah yeah yeah yeah there there the the non thought of his physical health was just it was crazy to see him put his body through that stuff yeah there was there was no fear and I mean there's like myself and other people that have no fear about going in fighting because you're going in there and you're protecting yourself he his fear was different like he wanted things to happen to him yeah uh and he felt like that made him tough that made him made people like him which was was was was sad because you shouldn't have to put yourself through those kinds of things for people to like you or for you to get over I remember uh in our interview he said uh Vince McMahon's a piece of every time a wrestler dies he gets away with it who said that new Jack do you feel that Vince really should take any responsibility for all the wrestlers that have died over the years or do you think that these are grown men they make their own decisions he gives him a platform and that's it well I think it's probably 50/50 huh I think that you know Vince as a human being or at least if it was me I would feel some sort of way um and wanted to try to figure out how I can make it better right and and that just didn't happen right but that doesn't make him wrong that that's just being a for me being a person a human being that cares that you when these things were all were starting to happen that you would start to feel almost like that's like you're responsible I mean I would right even though you're not but you would just feel that way because it's your organization and things are happening and it's not good um but but again I think that's more of a personal thing but if you're looking at it out from 30,000 fet up and looking at it he Bears no responsibility right I think it's just more of that human nature is why don't you feel responsible that type of thing but as far as law or as far as that from that standpoint there's no he Bears no responsibility these are personal choices that maybe because of the way this environment is causes them to do that but the Vince isn't making those decisions for them these are things that they're doing to themselves on their own I mean if you were the president of WWE and you took Vince's job what would you do differently that he did not do through out his tenor oh I I'm not even going to tackle that because I I don't know I I I I'm not in it enough to know what is happening like I don't I don't even know when all these things are being said I don't know where that where where that responsibility falls on Vince as much as everybody saying that I don't know I I mean I can hear what people are saying but it's hearsay from what people are saying I don't know for sure if all these things are that are said are true I mean I'm just going off what people are saying so I I really wouldn't know where to start unless I was actually plugged into it well uh you and a Chris benois you guys were in the ring together he died of suicide in 2007 how shocked were you when you heard that never saw that coming I mean I guess people that were closer to him probably did but everything that I knew of him I thought he was a stable human being I really did I I would never never never saw that coming I mean in retrospect what do you think contributed to it you know again it's speculation you know I I hear things you know um uh it it's almost like whether it's in the NFL or basketball baseball it seems like there there's schedules are rigorous you're asked to do a lot of things um you get towards theend into of your career um it's a natural thing anyways even if you're not locked up on drugs or painkillers or alcohol or whatever it is it's still a huge let down without any of that stuff and here all of a sudden you're this million dooll man and everybody wants a piece of you to where once you're gone nobody cares like they're very you don't have that Demand anymore and you feel like you're a piece of crap like you don't feel like important anymore which is not true but you're just not getting what you used to get and so it it it plays a there's a mental effect on you and if you're drinking and if you're doing drugs and if you're doing painkillers you're doing all these things when you come down off of that stuff it puts you even in a better position to where you might do something stupid uh to yourself or to others because you're not in your right mind so again I know there's always this thing about pointing the finger one way or another but there's so many things involved uh that happen to cause these kinds of things uh like with Chris benois I mean do you know any X WWE guys who are in their 50s 60s who don't have serious health problems who's you know who are in generally good health as a typical 50-year-old or do all of them have serious permanent injuries from doing in the sport yeah all of them do all of them do and then and not even just you know physical issues they have mental issues because they've dedicated their life to something that isn't that isn't real like even fighting when it comes to the world we live in isn't real it's we we don't keep that we there's a world out there we have to live sooner or later we're going to be what is real and that's the world right we're not going to be in this shell and everything taken care of and health and it's you're going to be cut loose somewhere right yeah so it's not real and so I think it's a when those things the physical injuries and all the things that happen to you when you get done with that now all of a sudden you're left to deal with those things on your own