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Charles Jay:
KIMBO NO “SLICE” OF HEAVEN FOR MMA

Kimbo Slice, the backyard brawler-turned-MMA wannabe star, was on the Jimmy Kimmel Show on ABC this past Thursday night. And I can’t help but think such an appearance would have made Dana White squirm, if Slice had been a UFC charge.

Kimbo is not even a creation of the media as most people know it. He is a creation of the internet, wholly and completely. And he is gravitating over to mainstream media channels as we speak. In the process of being sold as an “underground legend,” he’s being packaged to the point where he is in fact a commercial entity, like Corn flakes or Diet Coke. Considering his level of real accomplishment, he has gone from unknown to overrated in a matter of months.

Well, let me back up a bit - he WOULD packaged better if anyone would have been able to coach him on plugging his upcoming event, for which he was on the air in the first place. Okay, I’ll do it: Kimbo is going up against Tank Abbott in a February 16 event televised by Showtime and presented by Elite XC.

The fight is being stamped “Street Certified,” which is where another problem arises.

The sport was resurrected and brought closer to the mainstream by putting finely-tuned athletes before the public; guys with credentialed athletic backgrounds, education, something in the way of real personality and communication skills that fans could latch onto. You can call it a white-biased NASCAR-type mentality if you want to, but it is true. That is the audience for promotions like the UFC; that is who, by and large, attends the events. The progression of the UFC in particular, and MMA in general (since the sport has followed the industry leader) has been to leave the Tank Abbotts of the world behind and focus on the fighters who offer more of a “professional” appearance, not just in terms of talent and training ethic, but also in terms of direct contact with the media.

The notoriety of Kimbo sets that back a bit, to say the least.

I mean, this is one of things that turns fans off to boxing. Here is a guy who has won ONE time against an MMA competitor, and he is on a major late night talk show, talking “thug life,” and in the consciousness of many of the non-fans or casual fans who were watching, he is the representative of the sport.

I’d be happy to give Kimbo Slice any and all opportunity to demonstrate in the cage that he can be a world-class competitor, capable of winning championships. I don’t know if that is going to happen. But until it does, the people who are pushing his “persona” might want to take a step back and think about whether this is the kind of image they want to present for the sport of mixed martial arts, which has worked hard to reverse what gave it a bad name in many of the circles that, like it or not, really matter, including the regulatory world.

Yes, he is a star, albeit one created out of whole cloth. And I would stop short of calling him the “Butterbean” of MMA (Actually, Butterbean is already IN mixed martial arts, though Kimbo’s next opponent - Abbott - might deserve that designation). But I will tell you this - if this is the biggest star the sport has to offer for the future, or if he represents what future stars are going to be like, then there is trouble on the horizon.

More on Kimbo in the next installment.