Ken Shamrock On The Rock Bleeding In Their WrestleMania 14 Match, Not Using Blood Capsules in the Attitude Era

Ken Shamrock spoke with Ethan Page and recalled making the Rock bleed during their WrestleMania 14 match. The two faced off for the Intercontinental Championship at the PPV, with Rock backed up by the Nation of Domination. After Rock used a chair to try and get one over on Shamrock for a cheap win, Shamrock snapped and continually put Rock in an ankle lock, stopping several times to take out members of the NoD. At one point Rock was bleeding from the mouth, and Shamrock talked about how that was legit blood from a lung tear and not a capsule.

Highlights and the full video are below:

On the finish of the match where Rock was bleeding from the mouth: “The funny thing about that is – it’s not funny, but that was back in the Attitude Era. And we went after one another. And Rock went after me; I went after him, and you know we all understood going into the ring that we were trying to do something special. We wanted to change the landscape of pro wrestling from being a, I don’t know. A talent show, or a flipping your hair back and walking pretty and looking pretty, to just rough and tough.

“So, Rock beat the hell out of me. And I turn around and beat the hell out of The Rock. Same with Stone Cold, same with Shawn Michaels. All those guys we got in there with – man, and the matches we had with Vader. It was the real deal. So, when I was coughing up blood, that was no joke. I mean we all, during that time, left our soul and our sweat and our blood in that ring in order for us to come out with that product that we know today as The Attitude Era.”

On the blood not being a capsule: “Oh hell no. No, no .. I’m telling you, we’d tear lungs. I did the same thing where I was I was coughing up blood taking a slam because I had a tear in my lung. Which is like a little paper cut or a tear in your lung from getting slammed so hard that blood would start leaking in. And if you did it enough times it would stay open you would drown, right? But staying away from it and letting it heal up, you know, it goes away.

“But that happens more times than people think. When you see somebody and they think it’s a capsule, it’s a tear. It means the guy’s been slammed so hard, or he got kicked somewhere in the match where that started to leak into his lungs and he started coughing up blood. That was no capsule, man. We didn’t do that during The Attitude Era. The stuff we did – when we took things on the pole [shots to the head] and were bleeding , there weren’t blades. We did it the hard way and that’s by hitting it hard with ourselves on a pole to bust it open.”

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit Ethan Page with a h/t to 411mania.com for the transcription.