>>13621612You are watching it in a vacuum without the context. 1997 Shamrock when viewed actually in 1997 was coming off of a string of Pancrase (the people that knew about pancrase didn't know it was a work) wins the smarks had read about and a really respectable UFC record that was fairly well known in the US at the time.
His run in the WWE absolutely does not hold up if you weren't there for it, but at the time being a seething roided out shoot tough guy that can't cut a promo was actually over because he passed the sniff test in an industry that was, relatively, freshly kayfabe free.
To put it another way it would be like someone in 20 years from now looking at Brock squashing Kofi and wondering what the fuck was happening since Kofi is clearly more over and a better "professional wrestler."
