Firstborn Lion: The Scott Bessac Interview, Part 3

Firstborn Lion: The Scott Bessac Interview, Part 3

Part Three of Three: Training Like Cavemen and the End of an Era

By William Colosimo | wcolosimo@yahoo.com

Scott Bessac was the first student of Ken Shamrock and was there at the beginning of what we know today as Mixed Martial Arts (MMA). The sport was developing in Japan, exploding with the formation of the Pancrase organization- and almost halfway across the world the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) was debuting in the United States. Scott has witnessed the birth of both Pancrase and the UFC and gives us an inside view of that time in history.

Firstborn Lion: The Scott Bessac Interview, Part 1

Firstborn Lion: The Scott Bessac Interview, Part 2

William Colosimo: The other fight I wanted to bring up that was mentioned in Snowden’s book was Ken vs Dan Severn at UFC 6. Ken had lost the King of Pancrase (KOP) title to Suzuki right before that fight. Several months before the fight with Ken, Dan was given a pro wrestling title- from the NWA (National Wrestling Alliance). The thought is if Ken, as KOP, would have lost to the NWA champ that would have made Pancrase lose face. 

Scott Bessac: Right. 

WC: Do you think Pancrase would have been really concerned about losing face if Ken lost? Could that be why the fight with Suzuki- the second one- had to be dropped? 

SB: Probably. I mean, I know they were pretty worried about it. I acted like Dan Severn for like two months before that fight. And so, I did exactly what Dan did everyday with Ken. And then Dan did exactly what I was doing and Ken just smoked him in two minutes. So, we weren’t really worried. I mean I knew Ken was gonna smoke him quick, but I think they were pretty concerned about it.

WC: You actually just covered my next question. During his UFC 6 post fight interview, Ken said that you were helping him train for the fight. When you were training and imitating Dan, what kind of drills were you guys doing? Were you just basically on top of him, and he was trying to work his way from under you? 

SB: No, I would like shoot in on him and push him up against the ropes, use my weight on him, and just act like Dan, you know? I’d watch tapes of Dan and would just mimic him, how he fought. And it worked out exactly like that.

WC: At the same post fight interview, Ken had mentioned that you were probably going to be an alternate in the next event- which did happen when you fought David Hood at UFC 7. How much notice did you have for that first UFC fight?

SB: Not a lot, there was never a lot of notice. I mean, I do remember once before I fought Joe Charles, just right before that when I fought Takahashi in Japan, Ken and I were eating in some restaurant and he goes “Oh, my dad just said you would be fighting in the next UFC,” and I’m like Cool. So it was always pretty short notice. It’s not like now where you got three months to, you know…

WC: So you were basically always training, always trying to be ready, because you didn’t know when you were going to take a fight- because it wasn’t as organized? 

SB: Right. Yeah, that and then we fought every month in Pancrase. And so, you just always had to train, even when you’re hurt- you trained.

WC: Were there any fights that you ever had from UFC or Pancrase that you thought you went in there pretty injury free? 

SB: No, no. I had broken hands in some fights and cut the cast off and the doctor would shoot it full of Carbocaine. Plus we trained one hundred percent at the dojo, so I don’t think any Lion’s Den guy ever went in injury free.

WC: That’s what I was getting at. It seems like injuries would be more common than not, going into the fight.

SB: Yeah, they say we trained like cavemen. But, that’s just what we did- so you always came in injured for a fight.

WC: When you were in UFC 7, was that always your plan- did you want to start with an alternate slot and see how you did, or did you want to get into a main card? 

SB: I didn’t care. I just wanted to get into the UFC, and when I fought in the alternate space, that was cool. And then the next one, I thought I was gonna fight Paul Varelans on the main card, and…

WC: Oh, where he fought Joe Moreira, I think.

SB: No, that… no, UFC: Ultimate Ultimate 95.

WC: Oh, okay.

SB: But the night or two before the fight, Mr. (Bob) Meyrowitz, the owner of the UFC came up to my room and said, “Hey, we’re gonna switch it to Joe Charles” I think, or something. Something happened, and actually he signed me to a three fight deal in the UFC. So I was like, “Cool.” So I think that had gotten switched up, but I didn’t care. Whoever.

WC: Then if I remember correctly, Pat Smith was supposed to fight Dan Severn. Pat had to get taken out a day or two before, so Paul Varelans got moved to the main card, so then that’s why they needed to find you a new opponent in Joe Charles, then.

SB: I guess. Yeah, I was just happy I got signed to a three fight deal (laughter), so I was stoked about that- ’cause I liked the UFC a lot better, and I would’ve started wearing gloves right away- but Ken was adamant about the submission thing.

WC: What did Ken think about Melton Bowen in UFC 4 and David Tank Abbott in UFC 6, as they were wearing the open fingered gloves where you can grab? Did Ken ever mention he liked those at all?

SB: He always said that anybody can knock somebody out, but submission is better technique. Like he told Masajiri, “Stand up in the UFC is never gonna get big.” He just, I don’t think he saw what it was becoming. And Ken was so good at submission, I don’t blame him for wanting everybody to be submission guys, but there was a lot of guys that just weren’t submission guys like Tra Telligman, and me, and Masajiri- much better at stand up, so…

WC: Okay, then at UFC 7 you beat David Hood with that guillotine in like thirty seconds or so. How quick was that submission? 

SB: I think it was like thirty or thirty-one seconds. I slapped him… I mean, I put it on him really quick. He hit me in my cup. I wore a thai cup, the steel Thai cup that I got in Japan, and I had like three marks on it. He was trying to get out of it, and we went up against the fence, and he was tapping. I think he went out before he went down, but it was quick. It was quick.

WC: And then in UFC 6, Ken told me he was wearing a Thai cup also when Dan Severn tried hitting him in the groin. You said you got it from Japan. Was that common in Pancrase for everyone to wear the Thai cup? 

SB: I think that we got the Thai cup thing from Maurice Smith.

WC: You beat David Hood pretty quick, so you got your first taste of no holds barred (NHB) in the UFC. What style did you like competing in better, Pancrase or the NHB style?

SB: Oh, UFC by far. I liked all the guys from Pancrase, I liked how they treated us, I liked the fans. I loved all that part, but I liked in the UFC where it was just “Go,” and you could punch and kick, and I must have head butted Joe Charles like twenty times- I loved that. That was just more my style; I was always a street fighter. That was right up my alley, and Ken and I just kept butting heads on the way to do it.

WC: And when you had the disagreement with Ken and you moved away, there was no way for you to finish those last two fights on the UFC contract because that was basically through Bob and Ken? 

SB: Well, I had three fights left, and Campbell McLaren sent me a letter at my house that said, “Hey, you’re suspended for sixty days with a broken hand, and we can’t wait to get you back. Just call us when you’re cleared by the doctor.” But by then I’d came back from Texas, I opened my own dojo, I had called David Isaacs and got the exact dimensions of the UFC cage and then put a cage in my dojo the exact same as UFC.

WC: A full cage? 

SB: Yep- full cage, which I ended up selling to Ken, and he took it down to San Diego. But I just couldn’t keep… I don’t know, just couldn’t get motivated. And then I got in this whole thing with these gang bangers and got smashed in the head where they cracked my skull, and then got permanent brain damage, and that was it. I couldn’t fight anymore.

WC: Oh, man.

SB: That was that.

WC: When you were over in Japan, what did you think about the culture difference? Other than partying with the guys after the fights, were you ever out venturing around Japan? What did you think about the culture and the people?

SB: See, we always stayed at the Shin Yokohama Kokusai Hotel. And so, every day when we were there and we took the train or went to different towns, I would walk around the cities for like hours and hours and then just give a card to the taxi driver where I was to get me back. And I loved Japan. It was really cool. The people are really nice. That whole thing in high school where they tell you all the people in Japan speak English is so wrong. Either they don’t or they don’t want to.

WC: How were you able to get around with the communication barrier? 

SB: You would just try. Point at things at restaurants. There was one time I had a real bad cold and I went into a pharmacy and come to find out all the cold medicine had codeine in it, and I didn’t wanna be on codeine and it took me like an hour, they had to go get an English to Japanese dictionary to find out what I was talking about (laughter). But, they were really sweet girls and it worked out. And it was different. The culture, it’s different, but- I liked it. I loved the food, the people. And a lot of the people looked at me, because I’m so big. I could be in the JR (Japan Railways) lines, and there be a huge crowd and I could see a foot over top of everybody. Besides you got people looking at you kind of like they’re scared of you sometimes- besides that, guys would come up and ask for autographs and they were real respectful. At fights, guys would bring me presents, like teapots and stuff and be real respectful.

WC: Oh, very cool.

SB: Yeah, I liked it.

WC: In Pancrase, and in your two UFC fights- who usually cornered you? 

SB: Frank, Vernon, everybody but Ken. Ken never cornered me.

WC: I was curious about that, because watching over some of your fights in the last week I started realizing I hadn’t been hearing Ken. Is there any reason why or would you rather not get into that? 

SB: I’ll just say Ken and I had a different kinda relationship. We were friends besides training together, and since we didn’t come really eye to eye on how it should be, he never cornered me. I never asked why. That’s just the way it was.

WC: Your last Pancrase match with Takahashi- now you lost that one, but you had a good showing in it and on top of that you won your previous four fights- three in Pancrase and one in the UFC. So why was the Takahashi fight your last Pancrase match? 

SB: That was all when I went to Texas. Ken called me a couple times back there and was like, “You need to come back here, your students…” At that time, I was like, No.” We ended up not talking for a couple years after that. So, whatever.

WC: If I remember correctly, Jerry Bohlander said that he had started in a self defense class at the Lion’s Den for a couple of months before he was asked to try out and join the fighter’s class. Did you teach the self defense or did you teach the fighters- or am I wrong on how the classes were set up? 

SB: Ken taught the fighters. And then, if Ken wasn’t there, we’d just all train together. I taught the self defense class. We had a kickboxing class for a while, I taught that. When Pete and Jerry came I taught them. We saw how good they were rolling around and got ’em in the Lion’s Den.

WC: Was there anyone else other than Jerry or Pete that went from the self defense class to the fighter’s team? 

SB: Well, there’s a guy, Jason Canals- and he wasn’t that good, but he used the Lion’s Den name to get into Extreme Fighting…

WC: Extreme Fighting 2- he fought Nigel Scantelbury or something like that? 

SB: Yeah.

WC: I remember that fight. You’re saying that guy was not a Lion’s Den fighter?

SB: No. He had never- he was just in my self defense class. He just took the name. So there was him, he did it- but without permission.

WC: Were there any other topics you wanted covered or anything I missed that you would like to get out there?

SB: Yeah, the only thing is I read a lot of articles about me that say I was fired from Pancrase and UFC, which is so not true. I just decided not to do it anymore. When I wasn’t talking to Ken, I just decided not to get ahold of Pancrase myself. That’s how that went.

WC: Maybe some of the confusion is that when Ken left Pancrase, Frank and Vernon apparently got squeezed out. People may have just assumed without asking you that you got squeezed out too.

SB: Yeah, because I had left before that. But some guys stayed- ‘cause Jason went back to Boston and he ended up staying in Pancrase for a long time. Right after I left and then a little bit later, like when Ken went into WWF (World Wrestling Federation)- Lion’s Den kind of just crumbled and everybody kinda went their own way. A lot of guys were… because of the way Ken was trained in Japan, I can’t really fault him for it- but the way Ken trained everybody, it was just so brutal, he did it to us and then I did it to everybody else. And then, when Vernon learned he did it to everybody else. Then, nobody knew any better and it just kinda crumbled, everybody went their own way. It’s too bad but it happened.

WC: All right Scott, that was everything I had for you. I appreciate your time very much.

SB: Oh, no problem.

William Colosimo is a part time writer who has an interest in interviewing fighters from either a submission wrestling lineage or the no holds barred era of fighting.