Ken Shamrock recently reflected on breaking Vader’s nose during one of his early WWE matches at In Your House 15: A Cold Day in Hell. In an interview on Insight With Chris Van Vliet, Shamrock explained that the injury occurred when he instinctively kneed Vader during the match.
“I’m a fighter, and I just tried to go in and do what I thought was normal. So, normally, I’m used to just sparring, right? You spar, but you don’t hurt guys, and that’s kind of what I did with Vader. I guess I ended up breaking his nose, didn’t know it.”
Shamrock also recalled Vader giving him a hard hit in response, known in wrestling as a “receipt.”
“I find out later on that he gave me a receipt when he hit me hard, I went down real hard. That’s like the chair shot, where people look at it and go, ‘Oh, Vader really nailed him, he must have p*ssed Vader off.’ I’m thinking to myself, ‘What? What are you talking about?’ And then I watched him and I was like, ‘That’s awesome.'”
Backstage, Bret Hart praised Shamrock’s performance, even though Shamrock was unsure at the time.
“When I walked back into the locker room, I remember Bret Hart was the first one I looked at. He went, ‘Dude, that was good.’ I’m thinking to myself it just didn’t feel right. I’ve been fighting all this time and I wouldn’t do this, and just didn’t feel right.”
Despite the injury, Vader was supportive of Shamrock after the match.
“Vader came up to me and says, ‘Bro, good job, man. Good job.’ He said, ‘I think you broke my nose.’ And I was like, ‘Huh?’ He goes, ‘When you threw the knee.’ I was like, ‘Oh, sorry.’ He goes, ‘Bro, don’t worry about it, man, it was a good match.’”
Looking back, Shamrock appreciated the experience, noting how much he learned from it.
“But then when I watched, I was like, ‘Damn, that was good, that wasn’t bad,’ and that was my actual very first one, really going and working with someone like that.”
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