I was wrong.
But, I have major doubts as too how seriously Mercer took this fight or if he even wanted to be involved in it in any capacity other than cashing the paycheck. He admittedly did little to no crosstraining for it, looked TOTALLY unenthused as he made his way into the cage & showed absolutely no desire whatsoever once the contest began.

Yeah, I agree that Mercer looked like he wanted to be anywhere else but there which is clearly a bad sign for a fighter. And you’re absolutely right that he likely didn’t take the fight seriously figuring that he was a former world heavyweight champion and his technical superiority as a striker would see him through.

So he wasn’t much of an opponent but IMO a lot of that was due to Kimbo’s fight plan. This is perhaps what surprised (and impressed) me the most about his debut fight–its one thing to train and spar, but a lot of guys from a specific fighting background revert to that when they get into the ring. In other words, a striker will look to strike first no matter how much groundfighting training he has and vice versa. Watching Kimbo’s streetfights, my thinking was that he’d make the mistake of walking right in and trying to exchange punches with Mercer. That’s why I thought Mercer would win and likely what Mercer thought would happen as well.

Kimbo didn’t even think of engaging Mercer in a standup battle and–as I noted in my original post–did everything he needed to neutralize the strengths that a world class boxer (which Mercer certainly was at one point) has.

The proposed bout with Tank Abbott seems like the next logical step & one that he should be favored to win in short order judging by Tank’s recent string of losses. He’s another guy whose only apparent interest in fighting these days is eating a few ounces of leather for a quick buck. But …

I do feel compelled to toss in a far fetched caveat in that, IF by some far out, unlikely chance Abbott actually trained for a fight against Kimbo & got himself into halfway decent shape, he could prove to be a very dangerous opponent. I think he’s got more power of the “one punch” sort than does Kimbo does & he certainly wouldn’t be as clueless as Mercer was against the cage & on the mat. Something to think about anyhow.

Tank is a good “next opponent” for Kimbo–he’s got the name value to sell PPV’s and definitely can punch. Not sure I’m convinced that he still has the one punch power edge–based on his fights of the past decade it doesn’t seem like his opponents have the same respect for his power they once did. Still, he’s obviously got a “puncher’s chance” and is a good measuring stick despite Tank’s recent record of 3-10 since 1996. If Kimbo *can’t* get the win at this point in Tank’s career he probably doesn’t have any business as a professional MMA fighter.

I agree that should Tank actually train for the fight that he could be a handful, but at this point in his career I don’t see it happening. He never really trained much when he was in his prime so its hard to see him starting now.

Another potential opponent that I haven’t seen or heard mentioned for him is Sean Gannon. Who does own a victory over Kimbo & whom I’m sure could be coaxed back into the cage for a rematch for the right amount of money.

If Gannon has an interest in fighting again I definitely think you’ll see it at some point, probably sooner rather than later. Like you said, you could build a PPV around the fact that he’s beaten Kimbo and he’s a similar “measuring stick” opponent as well. If Kimbo is going to be a serious MMA contender he shouldn’t have trouble with a guy with a MMA record of 1-1 who was destroyed by Branden Lee Hinkle in his only UFC bout.

I look forward to your thoughts & before I sign off, I want to let you know how much I enjoy your site & how impressed I am by the amount of thought I know goes into it. As with your thoughts on Kimbo’s potential, we may differ in our opinions, but I’ll always admire & have great respect for a man that can offer up his knowledge & views & articulate them well.

Thanks for the kudos and thanks for taking the time to post this articulate and thoughtful comment. The Kimbo Slice saga will definitely be interesting to watch as it plays out–its basically up to him now. If he wants to milk his new found celebrity he can definitely do so, but he’s got the opportunity to become a legitimate MMA contender. He could be the “perfect storm” of popularity, intrinsic toughness and solid training that we haven’t seen since Mike Tyson in his prime before he (or Don King or Robin Givens, depending on who’s version of the story you believe) ran off Kevin Rooney and the other good boxing people around him. If he’s willing to dedicate himself to the discipline, sacrifice and work necessary to becoming a professional fighter the sky’s the limit for him. At the very least, it’ll be interesting to watch ; )

But, we also have to look at the substance of what he had in front of him in his MMA debut. Which was suspect at best …

Now, I was amoung those that thought that even an out of shape, depleted Ray Mercer would prove to be too much for a guy off the streets like Kimbo. Even with the serious training that he’d done with Bas in preparation for the contest, I figured that it would in no way enable him to seriously cotend with a man in Mercer that had been training in a combative sport for the majority of his life & been to the pinnacle of it both as an amateur & a pro.

I was wrong.
But, I have major doubts as too how seriously Mercer took this fight or if he even wanted to be involved in it in any capacity other than cashing the paycheck. He admittedly did little to no crosstraining for it, looked TOTALLY unenthused as he made his way into the cage & showed absolutely no desire whatsoever once the contest began.

Which isn’t Kimbo’s fault as he obviously did his job properly before & during said fight, but I honestly think that due to Mercer’s lack of effort, Kimbo would have had more serious competetion infront of him had he met recent Tommy Morrison opponent John Stover in the cage rather than the now disgraced Ray Mercer.

But, what’s done is done & Kimbo’s MMA debut was a successful one. One which should be a very interesting one to watch. Especially when it comes to matchmaking.

The proposed bout with Tank Abbott seems like the next logical step & one that he should be favored to win in short order judging by Tank’s recent string of losses. He’s another guy whose only apparent interest in fighting these days is eating a few ounces of leather for a quick buck. But …

I do feel compelled to toss in a far fetched caveat in that, IF by some far out, unlikely chance Abbott actually trained for a fight against Kimbo & got himself into halfway decent shape, he could prove to be a very dangerous opponent. I think he’s got more power of the “one punch” sort than does Kimbo does & he certainly wouldn’t be as clueless as Mercer was against the cage & on the mat. Something to think about anyhow.

Another potential opponent that I haven’t seen or heard mentioned for him is Sean Gannon. Who does own a victory over Kimbo & whom I’m sure could be coaxed back into the cage for a rematch for the right amount of money.

Sure, the UFC career that he parlayed out of his win over Kimbo was a short, disasterous one for him, but that would be a moot point as far as this match up is considered. No one would care what he’s done since, just that he beat the “monster” Kimbo & they’d want to see if he could do it again. I think they could build a PPV around that.

I look forward to your thoughts & before I sign off, I want to let you know how much I enjoy your site & how impressed I am by the amount of thought I know goes into it. As with your thoughts on Kimbo’s potential, we may differ in our opinions, but I’ll always admire & have great respect for a man that can offer up his knowledge & views & articulate them well.

Please do–its sort of an eclectic mix of topics, but I address politics quite a bit. As a Libertarian, you’ll no doubt find enough that you agree with and enough to piss you off to keep you entertained for awhile ; )

Now to be so crazy as to talk about MMA for a moment
Those Google results are interesting and definitely indicate a lot of buzz about Kimbo.

Something to keep in mind, though, is that coupling the fighters name with the word “tough” would favor Kimbo, as people are more limited in how they can praise a street brawler. For someone like Fedor, toughness is only one of many aspects that make him a complete fighter. I’m sure you know people can just as easily praise his skills, conditioning, submissions, complete dominance in the HW division, etc.. And there is a big step between enjoying the sideshow spectacle of free Youtubes clips and being willing to spend $40.

The Kimbo buzz alone can keep him in the sport as long as he wants. If he wants to devote himself seriously to training and become a professional fighter it could make him a superstar. I know that as far as my own site, this story has received about 10x more hits than the average posting. There may be other factors–its longer, its after a big weekend of MMA events so people might have been seeking out MMA information–but its hard for me to believe that Kimbo doesn’t have something to do with it.

And your point about the Google comparison is well taken–its obviously an unscientific comparison. Also, the service I used just measures the appearance of the name/modifier and not the context–so if a site said “Kimbo is a big dude but will get his ass kicked if he fights anyone tough” it would still show up as a citation. I’m going to do a little more research tonight with some head to head comparisons without adjective modifiers. It was just the site I was looking at while I ate lunch used them.

And I agree that watching Kimbo beat up a rasta on YouTube and paying $40 to watch him do it are two different things–but consider how much money fight promoters spend trying to get their competitors exposed to the public. If the big money fights of the last year (DLH/Mayweather, Couture/Sylvia, etc.) demonstrate anything its that the most money is made when you can make the public care about the fighter. There were plenty of cards with fights that you could tell going in were going to be more exciting and/or competitive, but that doesn’t sell tickets and PPV’s like personalities.

So if this many people already care about Kimbo enough to write about him online and read about him–not to mention watch his YouTube “fights”–just imagine what the UFC promotion machine could do with him. He’ll have to “audition” a few more times by fighting guys like Tank Abbott, but if he continues to dominate physically and learn what Bas Rutten is trying to teach him it won’t be long before he’ll be appearing in a bigger organization. Like I’ve said before, if everything breaks right he could end up being the Mike Tyson of MMA. In any case, the phenomenon of his popularity is fascinating and it’ll be interesting to see what happens ; )

Now to be so crazy as to talk about MMA for a moment
Those Google results are interesting and definitely indicate a lot of buzz about Kimbo.

Something to keep in mind, though, is that coupling the fighters name with the word “tough” would favor Kimbo, as people are more limited in how they can praise a street brawler. For someone like Fedor, toughness is only one of many aspects that make him a complete fighter. I’m sure you know people can just as easily praise his skills, conditioning, submissions, complete dominance in the HW division, etc.. And there is a big step between enjoying the sideshow spectacle of free Youtubes clips and being willing to spend $40.

Certainly there’s a lot of unknowns about Kimbo–IMO the biggest question will be his dedication to training and learning how to be an MMA fighter. Based on his first fight, I give him high marks but it remains to be seen whether or not he wants to dedicate himself to becoming a serious fighter or if he’ll be content with profiting from his new found fame.

And it may be more like a two year time frame but assuming that Kimbo *does* commit himself to becoming a serious fighter I stand by my suggestion that he’ll be a top ten heavyweight. Don’t forget that MMA is a business and based on his amazing and somewhat improbable popularity he’ll get opportunities, and get them more quickly than the average MMA newcomer. If he continues to progress as a legit fighter he’ll get big fights sooner rather than later. He’ll be considered a top ten heavyweight in this regard, which I guess is what ultimately matters–Kimbo’s skill as a fighter relative to the rest of the heavyweight MMA fighters in the world isn’t as relevant than the PPV buys he generates.

And his insane popularity cannot be underestimated–I did some research with a tool called “Google Duel” which compares the number of pages containing certain keywords, modified by certain adjectives. I did a comparison between Kimbo and the baddest man on the planet, Fedor Emelianenko who, as your aware, most (including myself) consider to be the #1 heavyweight MMA fighter in the world. I used the adjective “tough” as a modifier. Fedor returned 230,000 hits, Kimbo 251,000. I then turned to the higher profile UFC fighters–Randy Couture fared better and surpassed Kimbo, but not by much–Couture brought up 291,000 hits. Kimbo trounces Tim Sylvia in terms of popularity (Sylvia brings up a mere 158,000 hits). Mirko Cro Cop brings up 221,000 hits, meaning Kimbo wins the battle of popularity here as well.

Obviously popularity doesn’t equate to talent, but what it does mean is that Kimbo will get every opportunity to become a legitimate force in MMA. If he decides to take these opportunities and dedicate himself, he’s got all of the tools to become a top heavyweight.

The implication of the Google comparison I did above is mind boggling–Couture is more popular and well known than Kimbo, but not by *that* much. Kimbo tops most of the other top heavyweights. What’s really amazing is that this is despite the Zuffa promotional machine behind the UFC fighters, while until now Kimbo’s popularity has been more organic.

How good Kimbo can or will become is certainly open to debate. The popularity and “buzz” he already has, however, is not. I’d be willing to wager that if the UFC booked a match between Kimbo Slice and Randy Couture on the next PPV that it would break all existing buy-rate records. Obviously Kimbo ain’t ready for that shot, nor is he deserving yet, but if he’s willing to put in the work he could be in the championship mix within a year or two. Based on his popularity alone, one of the major MMA organizations is going to do whatever they can to make sure that he is.

I’ll go back to the comparisons I made in the article–I can see him either becoming a US version of Bob Sapp, using his fighting career as a springboard to becoming, essentially, a “personality” type celebrity. And assuming that he answers my big “IF”–his commitment to training and improving as a fighter–he could become the Mike Tyson of MMA, becoming the type of celebrity that transcends the sport and captures the imagination of the general public.

I’ll be interesting to watch, that’s for sure…..