Ken Shamrock revealed that after proving that he could withstand the punishment of Vader, he wasn’t happy with his performance. However, when he got back to the locker room, Bret Hart gave him some words of praise. 

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“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,” recalled Shamrock.

If compliments from Bret Hart weren’t enough, Vader too thought Shamrock had a strong performance. 

“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.’ I was like when I did it, I didn’t feel that good about 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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Shamrock and Vader continued to feud throughout 1997, which included a rare appearance in the FMW promotion in Japan when WWE had a brief working relationship with him. They also fought in an Ultimate Rules Steel Cage match, where Vader picked up the win over Shamrock after the former UFC fighter won their first bout at In Your House.

Please credit “Insight” when using quotes from this article, and give a H/T to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.