Rock-Bottom Alert: Ken Shamrock Asks Strangers to Call him for $11.99 per Minute

“Okay, so I’m making a living as a fake fighter. Things can only get better from here, right?”

If history is any indication, it’ll only be a matter of time before this headline becomes tragically outdated. Ken Shamrock has gone from taking lopsided beatdowns from Tito Ortiz, to taking them from the UFC’s lawyers, to accusations of juicing himself in order to get out fighting Kimbo Slice, to testing positive for steroids after beating up a fat guy, to submitting to leg-kicks from Pedro Rizzo, to beating up another fat guy with the help of an eye poke, to losing to Mike Bourke after his leg gave out while going backwards (seriously), to hitting a “heavyset” woman that he thought was a guy. The point I’m trying to make is that whenever things look like they can’t possibly get any worse for the guy, we see his name in the news and think to ourselves, “Yep, I really should have seen this coming.”

That being said, you know things aren’t exactly good for somebody when…you know what, I’ll just let this press release sent to Cagepotato.com yesterday explain:

Maryland, 29 th October 2012 [Author’s Note: The date was wrong, so I figured things weren’t exactly off to a promising start…] – UFC Hall of Famer Ken Shamrock has announced the launch of his own fundraising chat line, allowing fans of the legendary icon to call him directly on his cell phone.

His service is part of growing micro-access phenomenon, whereby well-known public figures can connect anonymously by phone with their followers on a pay-per-minute basis.

Calls to the UFC celebrity are priced at $11.99 per minute, and he will join a growing list of sports luminaries who have agreed to have fans call them directly.

That’s right, Ken Shamrock is now allowing strangers to call his cell phone for money, through a service called Call a Champ. So all of you Ken Shamrock fans out there who have at least $11.99 that you haven’t already thrown into a woodchipper can buy a conversation with “The World’s Most Dangerous Man” himself. Maybe you’re just dying to ask him why he never fought Dan Severn over at Juggalo Championship Wrestling. Or maybe you want to know where to buy a good steak in Reno. Or maybe you just want to buy an incredibly awkward conversation with the former champion, where you can gush over his achievements while he occasionally says “Thanks, I appreciate that.” Regardless, you now have an outlet for all of this, and at $11.99 per minute, I imagine that the line will almost never be busy.

But the fun doesn’t stop there, unfortunately. Be sure to read Shamrock’s biography on the Call a Champ website, where the author talks about MMA and professional wrestling as if they’re the same thing:

Mixed Martial Arts is the fastest growing sport in the world today, and Ken Shamrock, as one of the sport’s founding athletes, is among the most widely recognized of the MMA fighters. With Shamrock’s unparalleled impact on the sport as a fighter and wrestler, he can only be described as an icon. Best known for his participation in the Ultimate Fighting Championships, The World Wrestling Federation, Pride Fighting Championships, Pancrase and Total Nonstop Action Wrestling, no other fighter possesses the credentials that have rightfully earned Shamrock the title coined by ABC of “The World’s Most Dangerous Man.”

If you’re looking for yet another reason to give up on life today, check out some of the other “well-known public figures” that have signed up for Call a Champ. If you happen to be a die-hard New York Giants fan, you can call Chris Calloway and ask him to apologize for every terrible Giants team of the mid-90s. If you’d rather talk to a champion, you can talk to Reuben Droughns, who was the fourth-string running back for the New York Giants when they won Super Bowl XLII, and is now an assistant coach for a Serbian football team. You can also call 1989′s NBA Sixth Man of the Year, Eddie Johnson, Loyola Marymount University Hall of Famer Bo Kimble and the first American to win a gold medal in inverted aerial skiing, Nikki Stone. So yeah, this service by no means comes off as a way for broke former pros to see if anyone will pay money to talk to them.

Granted, Ken Shamrock isn’t the first MMA fighter to sign up for something like this; for only $100, Thiago Alves will send you a recorded message! I guess the difference here is that unlike Ken Shamrock, Thiago Alves is still relevant in MMA, can still make money by fighting, and can almost sort-of justify the $100 talk-to-Pitbull fee.

Forgive me if it seems like I’ve been harping on this, but where does Ken Shamrock think he’s going to find people willing to pay $11.99 per minute to talk to him when he hasn’t been relevant in years? He’s not providing THAT kind of phone service, is he? Let me re-read that disclaimer at the top of Ken’s page…

We offer discreet one on one talk with Ken Shamrock! If Ken Shamrock is not by the phone or on another line your account balance will not be deducted. All calls are private and fully confidential. No one listens in and calls are never recorded.

…guys?

@SethFalvo