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This is the archive for June 2008

Kimbo Slice Is A Joke

As someone who has watched boxing for 15 years now, I've seen a lot of blatantly crooked, blatantly biased decisions where it was obvious someone was on the take. If not the referee, then the promoters, who have interests to protect, made sure the judges knew who was supposed to win the fight, and that they were to make sure the right person got the victory.

Last night, at the EliteXC event televised on CBS, Kimbo Slice got a serious taste of what the NBA calls home cooking. The rest of the world calls it a fix. That's what Slice's fight against James "The Colossus" Thompson was, a blatant fix.

Any unbiased observer, and even the paid shills doing the commentary for the event on CBS, knew Kimbo was down two rounds to none. Kimbo got exposed on the ground, and he finally fought someone who could not only take his punches, but hit him back harder. Kimbo was absolutely gassed, gasping for breath, and completely owned by his first legitimate competetor since Sean Gannon beat him in that YouTube streetfight. So far all Slice has done in his career is beat up tomato cans and 50-something former boxers.

If you believe Thompson was too hurt to go on in that fight, watch the ending when he looks at, then shoves, the ref. That doesn't look like a man who is ready to go down. Besides, it would have been in Elite's best interests to let Thompson get knocked out, if they really thought he was in danger. He was hurt, but no worse than Kimbo was hurt in the first round OR the second round, both times when he got saved by the bell. Given how they let Gina Carano and Kaitlin Young finish their round despite Young's awful-looking eye, I don't see how anyone who isn't a Kimbo fanboy could possibly tell me that the ref wasn't told, before the third round, to stop it in Kimbo's favor the moment Thompson got in trouble. If it wasn't a fix, then that is the worst official I've ever seen, and I've seen Dick Bavetta call an NBA game.

Kimbo Slice, if he'd started doing this 10 years ago, could've been a great righter. As it stands now, unless he gets serious about learning some ground skills, he's going to be nothing but a less-interesting version of Bob Sapp. Come to think of it, I'd love to see Kimbo fight the real internet legend, Bob "The Beast" Sapp. They're both old, they're both huge, they're both one-dimensional brawlers, and neither one of them can make it through a full round without gasping for breath. It's the perfect fight! The only problem is Kimbo would get absolutely slaughtered, so EliteXC won't let the man they've pumped a million dollars into get knocked out so quickly.

Once Elite makes all the money they can off him, or until his contract is about over and he makes it clear he's not interested in resigning with them, Kimbo will continue to be protected, both through crooked decisions like last night's and by giving him easy opponents. Or, in the case of last night, a little bit of both. I don't want to see EliteXC try to out-crooked Don King. If that means Kimbo gets his ass handed to him by a real fighter, so be it.

Elite XC

Dear Elite XC audiences,

You spoiled motherfuckers. I saw the primetime CBS special tonight, and I’ve been looking forward to seeing Kimbo fight for a while on television. However, that isn’t what I’m going to do a mini-rant about. During the Lawler vs Smith fight you ignorant douchebags were booing when they stopped fighting for twenty seconds trying to strategize. You get treated to quick knockouts and stops due to people getting punched hard in the face and you boo for twenty seconds of inactivity? I got a great recipe to drive you fuckers insane: Tim Sylvia. Half of you would put your heads through the chairs you sit in if you saw him fight. Oh, but of course when Lawler and Smith go on a flurry, you all mark out like a bunch of teenage girls for John Cena again. Sickening. WEC and UFC crowds aren’t like that because they actually have a clue. After maybe a minute or two of jack shit then I can see the need to boo, or in the case of the fight finish because it was bullshit, but you idiots whined after twenty seconds. Get your heads out of your asses and learn to appreciate real MMA.

Oh, and a special Jim Rome style war goes out to Phil Baroni for doing a very flashy entrance and then getting knocked on his ass about two minutes later. Nice job, idiot.