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Sunday morning media: Kimbo Slice’s fan appeal
By Zach Arnold | June 24, 2007
Don’t make Joe Rogan angry…
Results from our last site poll question: Who will become the double-crown 205 pound champion?
Quinton Jackson – 59%
Dan Henderson – 41%
Relatively speaking, those results would suggest setting the odds at Jackson -180 and Henderson +120 going into their September 8th fight.
We’ve added a new poll on the right side of the main page. Check it out. It should spur an interesting debate.
This morning, Dan Le Batard on ESPN’s Sports Reporters talked about the rise of MMA amongst 18-to-34 year olds.
With the rampant Kimbo Slice-mania from callers on the radio show that Luke Thomas hosts, I had to check out Technorati to see if there was any juice whatsoever for the Kimbo Slice/Ray Mercer fight.
The answer – a little, at best.
Based on the initial search results, you can break down the following bloggers/sites that paid attention to last night’s events in Atlantic City: 1) Your super hardcore MMA fans, 2) news media that looks at Kimbo as an odd curiosity, and 3) freak-show lovers. Ironically enough, I saw several links in Japanese on Japanese MMA blogs putting over Kimbo Slice big time. In a strange way, he’s viewed almost the same way Japanese fans initially thought of Bob Sapp when they first saw him fight. Not to give K-1 any ideas, but given that Sapp’s career with the promotion is likely finished, Kimbo Slice is absolutely the perfect prototype of a fighter that they would love to push on mainstream Japanese television.
On last night’s edition of Sportscenter on ESPN, the Gray Maynard DDT spot made the #8 position on their nightly Top 10 plays.
A casual fan’s perspective on last night’s UFC show. Plus, someone makes the argument that BJ Penn is the most skilled fighter in MMA. Overall, there was a lot of buzz for the Penn/Pulver fight on Technorati. It blew away the amount of posts that UFC 72 generated online.
Pictures from the SF/Elite XC show on Friday night.
Onto today’s headlines.
- John Griffin: Strikeforce is the anti K-1 (an ironic statement to make since Scott Coker worked with K-1 for many years)
- More than UFC: Glad I only play poker — thoughts on the TUF 5 finale
- The Fightworks Podcast: Romero “Jacare” Cavalcanti interview
- The Cincinnati Enquirer: Everybody was kung fu fighting (the paper claims ‘a few thousand’ fans showed up at the Cincinnati Gardens – author’s e-mail here)
- Stars and Stripes: Fight clubs – Military veterans take fighting skills to the next level
- The st. Clair County Journal (MO): Area schools are picking up on martial arts, MMA fighter Jeremy Genin competes in Chicago
- The Midland Reporter-Telegram (Texas): Rex Richards makes quick work of Ray Seraille
- The Chronicle Herald (Halifax): Roger Hollett wins in 16 seconds
- Sprawl ‘n Brawl: MMA Big Show: Domination at Cincinnati Gardens quick results
- The Killeen Daily Herald (TX): Cove fighter wins MMA debut at Harker Heights Event Center
- The Gilroy Dispatch (CA): Anthony Figueora suffers first loss
- The Grand Island Independent (NE): Des Moines fighter Ted “Red” Worthington defeats Dan Gregory in 1st round at Heartland Events Center
Topics: HERO's, K-1, Media, MMA, Pro Elite, StrikeForce, UFC, Zach Arnold | 8 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Crossing my fingers for Kimbo vs. Bobish
You think Rogan would learn by now that the reason he has so many hecklers is because his comedy so really, really, sub-par. It’s okay sometimes but for the most part it pretty much blows.
The only time I’ve heard Rogan’s comedy is when he’s debating hecklers, and he does a good job at that. Maybe he purposely tries to attract hecklers so he can punk them out. That’s his comedy style.
One note on Headline 11: Every fighter in the photo had one different colored MMA gloves. If this means that the fighters were allowed to bring their own gloves to the fight and use them, then something is terribly wrong. Gloves need to be specifically handled by the fighting commission (doubt there was once) to stop some low-life from loading his up and fighting with the.
Legislators Spar on Toughman, Mixed Martial Arts Fighting
Looks like North Carolina is going to regulate MMA & get rid of toughman matches.
Friends,
What a great weekend for MMA. Loved Shamrock-Baroni, Penn-Pulver, Diaz-Gamburyan (sad ending), Le-Frykland, and other great fights.
Klown,
Let’s not forget Zach’s favorite, Kimbo Slice. 🙂
What’s everybody’s problem with Kimbo, he’s a human being, respect him. I not only respect him, I am a huge fan of his footwork and he controls his body well. I loved this weekend even though there were no PRIDE streams to watch that start at midnight my time, it was a great weekend!