Kimbo Lives on to Fight Another Day

Some would say that the result to the much-anticipated fight between Kevin “Kimbo Slice” Ferguson and Roy Nelson was a foregone conclusion.  After all, Slice doesn’t have the kind of wrestling background to keep the fight vertical for the entire time, and Nelson is an excellent grappler, which happens to coincide nicely with Slice’s biggest weakness.  Even on the feet, it was fairly assured that Nelson would be experienced enough to stay out of trouble, which he did.  However, the outcome of the fight itself didn’t really matter, at least not to Kimbo’s UFC future.

Sure, it would have been great for Kimbo if he could have beaten an experienced fighter that boasts being a former IFL Heavyweight Champion.  However, Kimbo announced even before the fight aired that he was training for a UFC fight in December, which was a surprise to literally no one.  Besides the finale of The Ultimate Fighter, there is a pay-per-view event scheduled for that month as well, so the writing was on the wall- Slice was going to get a shot in the UFC, whether he won or lost against Nelson in the taped fight.

There are other indications, as well.  The fact that Tapout has not just a shirt or two, but an entire line of Kimbo Slice apparel was a good sign that things went well enough on the show.  Anyone who has paid attention in the past has seen the Tapout crew on episodes of the reality show, watching the fights with various other folks.  Would Tapout have put that much merchandise out with Kimbo’s name on it if he had made a fool of himself on the show or gotten KO’ed again like in the Petruzelli fight?  Not likely.

Besides that, the ratings of this season have also cemented Kimbo as a UFC competitor after the season concludes.  His fight against Nelson had a record 6 million viewers, which nearly equaled the amount of people that caught Slice’s fight on network television against James Thompson (which most will remember as the “exploding ear” fight).  To get those kinds of numbers on a cable television channel for a show that is in its tenth season is very impressive. 

For the UFC, Kimbo’s loss couldn’t have happened in a better way.  Slice came off very well in the episode, where everyone that was interviewed or caught on camera seemed to be praising his work ethic, ability to learn and attitude.  Not only that, but Nelson’s admittedly smart tactic of trapping the jiu jitsu novice in a crucifix and tapping at him with light punches so as to avoid injury and move on without incident allowed Slice to remain the sentimental favorite, even with the loss.  Even though the loss was officially by TKO, we saw no footage of Slice having been battered or knocked senseless, because of Nelson’s strategy.  It allows Slice to save face and get out of the show and focused on his next bout.

Make no mistake, the UFC will not be feeding Kimbo to a grappler of Roy’s abilities again anytime soon.  Instead, the UFC will play it safe for at least a few bouts, allowing Kimbo to fight on the main card of UFC events against fighters that most of us have never heard of, and whom will not be found in any NCAA wrestling record books or grappling tournament podiums.  The ratings of “The Ultimate Fighter” so far have shown that Kimbo, for whatever reason, draws a lot of eyes to television sets, and the UFC would be flat-out foolish to not capitalize on that.

So, Kimbo has bought himself a little more time to learn as much jiu-jitsu and wrestling as possible.  If he can continue to improve, it is guaranteed that the UFC will give him opportunities to knock the ball out of the park.  The question is, will he be able to do so?

by Jon Hartley for Fightmania.com

Tags: Kimbo Slice, UFC