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That single individual is a former street fighter turned Elite XC front man Kimbo Slice, who many in the UFC vowed would never set foot in the promotion. For a person who has fought less that five professional fights in mixed martial arts, very few fighters have garnered negative attention from UFC aficionado and VP Dana White.
The now defunct Elite XC promotion pushed Kimbo Slice as its main attraction, despite his lack of experience as a professional fighter. At points throughout its existence, fighters like Robbie Lawler, Jake Shields, Gina Carano, Frank Shamrock and others passed through Elite XC and Kimbo Slice was still pushed as the promotions biggest star.
The question I will be raising in this column, is presuming Kimbo Slice wins the UFC Ultimate Fighter 10, how will he react when he is a big fish in an even bigger pond? The UFC already has a load of marketable stars like Chuck Liddell, Forrest Griffin, Anderson Silva, Brock Lesnar, Randy Couture and others, so Kimbo Slice will be far down the list of active UFC stars, despite his name value.
Also, it has been nearly a year since Kimbo Slice last fought in active MMA competition, suffering a loss to Seth Petruzelli at Elite XC On CBS III. I bring this up because Kimbo Slice wasn’t a very polished fighter to begin with, despite some improvement from fight to fight, but he will be entering a promotion that features most of the top MMA fighters from around the world.
There is a big step up in competition from the likes of James Thompson and Seth Petruzelli to Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira, Frank Mir and Brock Lesnar. Now, Kimbo Slice does train alongside former UFC contender Bas Rutten, so he will come into the reality program and potentially the UFC with top notch training under his belt.
Now while the pressure is firmly on the shoulders of Kimbo Slice, one man who benefits from the situation is UFC VP Dana White. I say this because if Kimbo Slice wins on the reality program and enters the UFC officially, there will be a potentially huge ratings and buy rates boost on UFC live event programming. However, if Kimbo Slice were to potentially lose on the reality program, Dana Whites negative comments about Kimbo Slice would be proven to be true.
Whether or not Kimbo Slice becomes a commodity in the UFC or a reality show loser, the upcoming season of the UFC Ultimate Fighter 10 will be an entertaining program to watch?
You can contact David Tees at bigtees360@yahoo.com
