Ding dong the myth is dead. The unbeatable brawler is exposed as being nothing more than a street thug with a glass chin thanks to unheralded and undersized Seth Petruzelli. The truth is that most anyone in the know already had written off Kevin "Kimbo Slice" Ferguson some time ago. Be it with his uninspired and controversial win over James Thompson on CBS in May or even 5 or so years ago from his street fight loss to Boston police officer Sean Gannon, who subsequently got his shot in the UFC but couldn't hang with even the weakest of competition. Nonetheless, Kimbo had MMA legend Bas Rutten in his corner and made a bunch of entertaing bare-knuckle brawl videos on YouTube, so he was an intriguing wildcard who suddenly had main event status due in no part to his fight record. That was all over with the minute luckless faded star (and former WWF Intercontinental Champ) Ken Shamrock pulled out of the scheduled main event with an unfortunate cut from last minute training. This forced EliteXC (with a Kimbo no-show meaning a probable end to the entire company) to push the untested but talented K-1 and Ultimate Fighter reality show veteran Petruzelli into the spotlight. If Kimbo had won, it would have been a testament to his toughness and courage to take on and defeat an opponent that he was unable to prepare for. As it stands, Kimbo seems to be a victim of his own marketing. He looks like a badass, he's an inspirational story, and maybe he can regroup and cobble together a fight career yet, but the Kimbo we thought we knew is no more. It's too bad, since the rest of the televised fight card was pretty excellent, but the only thing people will take away from the night was that Kimbo bit the dust in a big way.
Sunday, October 5, 2008
EliteXC's Kimboner
Ding dong the myth is dead. The unbeatable brawler is exposed as being nothing more than a street thug with a glass chin thanks to unheralded and undersized Seth Petruzelli. The truth is that most anyone in the know already had written off Kevin "Kimbo Slice" Ferguson some time ago. Be it with his uninspired and controversial win over James Thompson on CBS in May or even 5 or so years ago from his street fight loss to Boston police officer Sean Gannon, who subsequently got his shot in the UFC but couldn't hang with even the weakest of competition. Nonetheless, Kimbo had MMA legend Bas Rutten in his corner and made a bunch of entertaing bare-knuckle brawl videos on YouTube, so he was an intriguing wildcard who suddenly had main event status due in no part to his fight record. That was all over with the minute luckless faded star (and former WWF Intercontinental Champ) Ken Shamrock pulled out of the scheduled main event with an unfortunate cut from last minute training. This forced EliteXC (with a Kimbo no-show meaning a probable end to the entire company) to push the untested but talented K-1 and Ultimate Fighter reality show veteran Petruzelli into the spotlight. If Kimbo had won, it would have been a testament to his toughness and courage to take on and defeat an opponent that he was unable to prepare for. As it stands, Kimbo seems to be a victim of his own marketing. He looks like a badass, he's an inspirational story, and maybe he can regroup and cobble together a fight career yet, but the Kimbo we thought we knew is no more. It's too bad, since the rest of the televised fight card was pretty excellent, but the only thing people will take away from the night was that Kimbo bit the dust in a big way.
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