Ken Shamrock Reveals Why He Left WWE And TNA

UFC Hall of Famer Ken Shamrock was instrumental in marrying the two concepts of professional wrestling and mixed martial arts. From worked matches, to shoot fights, to worked shoot fights, Shamrock has been a little bit of everywhere, but many fans wondered why he disappeared from the WWF without notice.

I spoke to Shamrock ahead of his big fight this Friday against fellow legend Royce Gracie at Bellator 149. I outright asked him why it was he left the WWE, and later TNA Wrestling, where he became world champion. For Shamrock, it boiled down to his family.

"There was a lot of stuff happening there. For me, I'd kind of hit this wall where I was on the roads so much that I was missing my kids' football games and wrestling matches and the dances they were going to. I had five kids, so it really hurt me to miss that many things. I felt that was a good time for me to figure out how to stop being on the road and be with my family. We had a lot of things coming up in my family that was tearing it apart. That's the reason those things happened. It just seemed like I spent so much time on the road, I missed my kids growing up, and I couldn't handle that," Shamrock said.

Shamrock would take an extended break from pro wrestling for several years, before getting a brief main event run in TNA Wrestling in 2002. Despite becoming their world champion, Shamrock would disappear from the scene yet again.

"I remember after I had won the title they came to me and wanted me to drop it to Ron Killings, who was a very good worker. Good kid. It just seemed like they stopped using me. I had a fight coming up and I had to train and couldn't be there all the time. I'm almost positive that's what it was, they needed guys that could be there full-time. When I joined them I told them I was still fighting and didn't mind doing this, but I couldn't commit 100 percent because I have fights and I'm training at different times. Going into it, that was the deal. Once it started going down, they saw that it took up too much time and they needed me there more in order to work some of these angles out. It wasn't an angry departure. I was satisfied with them, they were satisfied with me, it just didn't work out," Shamrock said.

We'll have our full exclusive interview with Ken Shamrock this Wednesday. You can also listen to the preview in the audio player below.