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Wednesday war room: Kimbo Slice a favorite
By Zach Arnold | June 20, 2007
Kimbo Slice is a -205 favorite with oddsmakers for his upcoming fight against Ray Mercer. Related article here.
Nobuyuki Sakakibara has a lot of friends right now. More details here in Japanese.
Calvin Ayre is bringing in some back-up.
Onto today’s headlines.
- Fightlinker: We’re not the only ones who hate Armando Garcia
- Inside Fighting: What MMA should not learn from boxing
- The Houston Chronicle: An open letter to Ken Shamrock – Enjoy Retirement
- Bloody Elbow: Charles Bennett, meet jail
- Komikazee: The raging debate over steroids
- The Lassen County News (CA): Susanville’s first charity MMA event to be held Saturday
- ESPN: MMA or boxing? The Mag’s Struby and Hockensmith swing away
- The San Antonio Express-News: Leading Off — UFC’s reality trumps boxing
- The Daily Iowan: Council bans fight nights
- Radio (Eddie Goldman): Come clean, Royce Gracie
- The Republican (MA): Dorel Cordeanu going to the extreme
- CBS Sportsline: Interview with Jens Pulver
- The Chronicle Herald (Halifax, Nova Scotia): Roger Hollett eyes next step to UFC
- MMA Weekly: Updated MMA Weekly fighter rankings
Topics: BoDog, Boxing, HERO's, K-1, Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 16 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Former WBA bantamweight champion and Olympic silver medallist Wayne ‘The Pocket Rocket’ McCullough links up with the UFC. Zuffa plans to use Wayne as a face to help them expand into Europe. If nothing else it’s a good interview/read.
You missed other Calvin Ayre news..
According to a thread on Sherdog’s Boxing forum, ‘Big’ George Foreman seems to support MMA as well (as a poster got a response from him by e-mail on it).
“Fans like to see fights in a barbaric setting says Felix Martinez of cage fury” LOL. Well he is right about something he has managed to appeal to the lowest class of all MMA fans. Every tailor park stereotype of the fight game will be on display at the fight card. Its so low cheezy, but he bought some good PR with his wifes money. Kimbo vs Mercer isn’t really sanctioned anyway. Its an exhibition. With Kimbo as a favorite, can you say WORK. In this business you are either a real fighter or a real joke. Cage Fury hanging its hat on a Kimbo fight, is quite pathetic. I can’t wait for this farce to be over. I wonder how many people will buy this on PPV, I say 12. Anyone who wants to watch Kimbo will see it on YouTube.
I wonder why no one mentioned in the Cage Fury article that at the last show 1/2 the crowd in the stands was so bored at CFFC 4 they left early!!
By the “main event” AC Conv hall was a ghost town. You can’t even see in the cheap cage they bought. These upstart promotions are so goofy. But hey man, Kimbo Slice, in an exhibition fight, if he gets by Mercer they might bring in Kamala the Ungandan Giant next. Great match making!
I wouldn’t be surprised to see Kimbo Slice KO Mercer standing. Boxing in a boxing match is a VERY different world than boxing in a MMA fight (as we’ve all seen).
I think this will be short and brutal, with Mercer getting grounded by a throw or possibly a punch, and then turtling until the ref pulls Kimbo off of him.
If they do a drug test after the fight Kimbo might be in trouble though…I don’t know how long he’s been off the gas for.
They aren’t drug testing or doing anything with this fight, its just an exhibition. Of course from Cage Furys promotion you would never know THAT. That’s why this event is so sickening. After all its not a real fight, it doesn’t go on their record. This is all set up so Kimbo’s porno (Milf hunter) backers can continue to market him.
NJ basically said we will let it happen. Here is a ref, but what goes on when the bell rings is *not my problem* NJ doesn’t control the judging for this fight. However good old cage fury will have their own. Just like Vince McMahon would do. It sets a horrible precedent and hopefully there will be some outrage. The Stuttering John vs Crazy Cabby fight in AC was more legit then this. This fight could very well be a stiff work.
Kimbo Slice has no experience whatsoever in MMA apart from a couple of training clips from Bas Rutten where he tries to throw kicks. What’s aweinspiring about all this is that:
-Slice is seen as having more grappling experience due to underground bare knuckle boxing matches in which he never wrestled, in spite of this being against a former marine who was trained in at least minimal fashion in grappling while with the Army.
-People think Slice will KO Ray Mercer. KNOCKOUT RAY MERCER. ARE YOU SERIOUS? RAY MERCER? The only reason Ray has been considered a factor since returning at the age of 40 to box is his steel chin. I would really appreciate it if pro wrestling fans who never watched any fighting sport before TUF would do at least a little cursory research before blurting dumb shit like that out.
They aren’t drug testing or doing anything with this fight, its just an exhibition. Of course from Cage Furys promotion you would never know THAT. That’s why this event is so sickening. After all its not a real fight, it doesn’t go on their record. This is all set up so Kimbo’s porno (Milf hunter) backers can continue to market him.
NJ basically said we will let it happen. Here is a ref, but what goes on when the bell rings is *not my problem* NJ doesn’t control the judging for this fight. However good old cage fury will have their own. Just like Vince McMahon would do. It sets a horrible precedent and hopefully there will be some outrage. The Stuttering John vs Crazy Cabby fight in AC was more legit then this. This fight could very well be a stiff work.
It goes to a draw if the fight makes it the distance. However, if he’s legit favored, I can’t imagine any reason why other than that A)there is no smart money on this fight at all B) his investors ran up the line.
I AGREE with your statement there is no smart money on this fight! what smart gambler would bet a fight like this? This is a slippery sloap, NJ playing with the MMA rules because this promoter is close with them. Can all promoters in NJ put on Bull shit main events now? Is this going to start a trend? I think this whole fiasco is a black eye for MMA and sets the sport back. Dana White was 100% correct when he slammed NJ for sanctioning this.
Just saw this guy on CNBC talking about Vince McMahon:
http://www.cnbc.com/id/19330600
I’m not sure what exactly is going on here, but Rovell said it might be an attempt to get publicity to beat back MMA. And, surprisingly, he actually said “mixed martial arts” rather than “ultimate fighting”.
The McCullough interview was pretty good. Refreshing to see a boxer who understands it.
Ricky Hatton Finishes up Training at UFC’s Gym.
“Hatton (42-0, 30 KOs) was pumped and ready to go to war at the UFC Zuffa Gym in Las Vegas yesterday as he put on some of the final touches for Saturday’s collision with Jose Luis Castillo (55-7-1, 47 KOs) at the Thomas & Mack Center.”
It kind of irritates me how every single thing that’s questionable about MMA ANYWHERE is used as this huge selling point to ban and/or discredit the UFC, and the entire sport.
It’s like the media is waiting on pins and needles for someone to die in MMA so they can say “HA! We were right all along! It’s barbaric and people die!”
So there is a shady fight between Kimbo and Mercer. Who gives a shit? It’s onr fight, in a small promotion. That shouldn’t reflect badly on the UFC, or the sport as a whole.
Every day when some asshole races with his friend and kills himself (or someone else) you don’t hear the news reporting “This is a HUGE black eye on NASCAR! We should ban it in every state!”
Ultimo … to me, the fact that the mainstream media keeps focusing on Johnnie Morton, Tommy Morrison, Kimbo, etc., is an attempt to pretend they are covering MMA while hiding the fact that they don’t have anyone on their staff who actually has a clue what they’re talking about.
Kimbo by kimura.