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Kimbo Slice, The Ultimate Fighter, and White America
By Zach Arnold | June 3, 2009
This guy is really bitter and jaded:
For all of the smack talk about Gary Shaw that Dana White has spoken over the last couple of years, White ultimately has decided that Shaw wasn’t so dumb after all in pushing a guy whose act never seems to get tired — especially to folks in White America. Spare me the angry messages and catcalls for stating the obvious, which is that Kimbo Slice’s gimmick is all about being ‘that big, Black scary guy’ who is a backyard street fighter. Throw in a Tito Ortiz-style angle where you have The Powerful White Boss vs. That Angry Black Guy and, tah dah, you have ratings. Throw in Rampage Jackson ’standing up the for Black man’ and I’m not sure whether to laugh or cry.
There’s also a second article on this topic that addresses more points (read it here).
Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 30 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
I’ll just say that is appears as though life looks different from that guy’s perspective than it does from mine.
A rare occasion where we agree, but apparently we “don’t get it”, Zach.
You know what’s really funny? Endless articles by the usual primates with keyboards about how Kimbo couldn’t draw about this time last year. Remember that? “Oh, people watch him on CBS, why would they pay for him? EXC will ride him to the grave like morons.” Suddenly: Kimbo is a MEGADRAW. Overnight! Without winning anything!
Interesting…
I see the next TUF as an attempt by Zuffa to grab on to the African American Market. I know, obvious statement, but didn’t BET’s Iron Ring do well in the ratings?
Lol, there might be something to his “big, black and scary” theory.
I’ve wondered a few times why the unstable ebonics mumbling jackson is described as “entertaining” and “having character” and so much more popular than the soft spoken and relatively intelligent Rashad.
But, thats too deep to waste too much energy thinking about.
🙂
I agree with his stateemnt. As far as laughing or crying goes, I choose to laugh. It’s just a fight promoter doing what a fight promoter does.
The fight game is about selling tickets and genrating ratings. I don’t think Kimbo is a live draw anymore. But it will produce monster ratings.
Oh, you wrote that Zach?
I just noticed that.
Kimbo is still ratings gold.
You have to give the people what they want sometimes to be able to afford to give them what they should want other times.
A shrewd and smart move.
He’s entertaining.
i think White respects Shaw for what he was able to do and therefore not afraid to have him onboard
I was about to say that ZA calling someone bitter and jaded was the height of irony too… 😉
Next week: Ivan Trembow accuses someone of faux-outrage.
(I kid, I kid)
If Kimbo Slice were a bearded, crazy-looking *white* guy who was KOing people in backyards on YouTube, I think he’d be in pretty much the same position he’s in now.
Woah, the story deepens quickly.
I just read that Dana has also shoehorned 4 (FOUR!) NFL vets into the show.
And I was just wondering how they where gonna manage to keep kimbo on the show long enough to get their ratings worth.
Then suddenly wa la! There’s the answer.
Also, if you watch enough UFC you’ll quickly notice that “white American” fans cheer on Brazilian Machida and Canadian GSP, love Lesnar but hate Hughes, root for Rampage but boo Evans.
When it comes to picking favorites in MMA it doesn’t have anything to do with racism or nationalism, at least not from where I’m sitting.
robthom: a lot of NFL athletes a) train MMA, and b) are in excellent physical condition.
Why are they not qualified to be on a show that features amateur fighters – some of whom can’t make weight, are flabby, and have 0-0 records?
Ultimo Santa is correct about who the fans cheer. The younger demographic, which the UFC pulls in, doesn’t really care about these things. They care about how they act and how they fight.
As for the NFL guys, 2 of them have good records for the limited experience they have.
This season is no different then any other. You throw a bunch of cr#p against the wall and see what sticks. Sometimes it is the favorites like Mac Danzig. Other times it is the unknowns like Rashad Evans or Amir Sadalloh.
The show is the perfect place for unprovens (but with potential) to showcase what they have.
From these NFL vets Brendan Shaub is a serious prospect. He trains with Marquardt and Carwin in Colorado.
Zach,
Somehow the quote on this page didn’t make it into the article.
What’s the story behind that?
“Ultimo Santa Says:
If Kimbo Slice were a bearded, crazy-looking *white* guy who was KOing people in backyards on YouTube, I think he’d be in pretty much the same position he’s in now.”
You’re 100% correct… this guy existed before. Tank Abbott. Popular as hell and might have had an even more limited skillset than Kimbo. MMA fans don’t care what race someone is as long as they are entertaining.
Rp
There’s a couple of ways to use Kimbo.
The bad way is proclaim him the world’s greatest fighter and let him fight cans on network television. In my view,that threatens to undermine the appeal of the sport to potential future fans, who’ll likely see MMA as glorified Toughman competitions. They are much less likely to draw that conclusion if they watch a match involving someone who actually is world-class, like, for example, GSP (although obviously Elite XC couldn’t have used him specifically). Accordingly, in terms of long-term good for the nascent sport of MMA, using Kimbo as a standard-bearer of “great fighter” seems wrong to me.
I think the better way is to let Kimbo compete with other novices to try to make the cut to the big leagues. That attracts eyeballs and satisfies curiosity about whether the legendary street brawler has what it takes to make it to the pros, without misleading people into thinking Kimbo is anywhere near the best MMA has to offer. That last impression is what I think it is critical to disabuse non-hardcores of.
Just my two cents.
FF
Ultimo: I dont even know who they are. But my idea was that to keep Kimbo around for as long as possible they’re gonna need a few guys that he can beat.
NFL washouts who are buffed, look scary, and think they can fight MMA after a year of karate classes is the cliche example that nice shiny can.
AS far as the race thing, theres 2 things that stick out to me.
Yes. everyone likes a maniac tough guy no matter what the color.
Tank is even better than Kimbo for some. And for the MTV ringtone rap kids, Kimbo is even better than tank.
But tank actually HAS character.
He says funny things.
Jackson is not as funny as tank on tanks worst day.
Jacksons amazing charisma seems to be mispronouncing words, mangling sentences and exclaiming who or what stank.
I know thats just him being him which I have no problem with.
But that that almost childish buffoonery would be the grounds for such accolades and popularity is kinda suspicious.
And Kimbo doesn’t have any personality at all. He’s just got a look.
Two: you dont see the vicious animosity for a soft spoken mildly annoying white fighter that Rashad gets.
Matt Hughes is soft spoken, and has been a bigger arsehole more often than Rashad ever has.
Yet he gets mild indifference at the very worst.
He doesn’t get the venomous attacks on message boards and thundering boo’s in the arena.
Maybe I just dont get it.
Why do they hate him?
Its not the kiss to the crotch thing because they’ve hated him long before that.
Whenever I’ve asked this question I only get vague dismissive statements like “I dont like his attitude”.
What attitude?
It makes me wonder if some people just dont like him because he doesn’t fit the big scary ghetto black guy image that fits the expectations they’ve learned from TV and is easier for them to accept.
robthom, hating a celebrity, sports figure or anything else is rarely logical, and you can’t chalk it up to race as a default explanation.
People are sheep.
You get a certain amount of momentum for an idea or concept, and before long the majority of people follow along without thinking twice about what they’re agreeing to.
People claim they don’t like Rashad Evans’ attitude because that’s what they hear and read – or they’ve just absorbed it through cultural osmosis – so subconsciously it becomes part of their neural programming.
As a film buff, I hear this all the time during conversations about movies. Someone will say “The first Matrix movie was good, but the other two sucked!”
“Really? When did you see them last?”
“Well, I didn’t SEE them, but I just *know* they both suck.”
How do they have certainty about something they know nothing about? Where did this supernatural information come from?
Because the human brain, by default, prefers finding an explanation (even a junk explanation) rather than not knowing something; it’s our way of not feeling stupid…our ego’s won’t allow it.
It’s also why people adhere so religion instead of just saying “I don’t know why we’re here” – they need a seemingly concrete explanation of human creation, even if there is no evidence to support it.
So in conclusion to this long and somewhat pointless rant, if someone says “I don’t like Rashad Evans” it’s probably not because they’re racist, it’s because they’re stupid and don’t think before they speak.
🙂
rob, I think you’re confusing people who have character with people who have charisma and “are characters.”
Evans has character, Rampage has charisma.
I’m easily confused, btw, is this post tongue in cheek, or does everyone who posts to MMA Memories get credited as Zach Arnold?
Kimbo’s thuggish persona has never been part of his professional MMA career promotion. To paint him as another Krazy Horse is wrong.
I don’t think Dana is going to go out of his way to feud with him. That would involve bashing his abilities and Dana has never done that to someone signed to the UFC. It would be stupid to say on television a guy you hope makes you money sucks. Because even if Kimbo gets eliminated, you know he’s getting some kind of contract. Now granted if Kimbo loses every fight I’m sure Dana will gloat. But until then he’ll treat him with complete respect.
The Tito ordeal was completely different. They had a long history, Tito had been there long enough to get into several contract disputes, and Dana only insulted his intelligence, not his fighting ability. Okay, and his resemblance to a gorilla as well. But if he says that about Kimbo the NAACP would boycott UFC so that won‘t happen.
One thing about the second article, despite what the author suggests, I really don’t think Gary Shaw had anything to do with the UFC signing Kimbo, and I have a hard time seeing Dana negotiating with Gary Shaw.
http://mma.fanhouse.com/2009/06/02/gary-shaw-shocked-disappointed-that-kimbo-slice-signs-with-uf/
Maybe I’m wrong, but I think I read somewhere else that Dana said Gary Shaw had nothing to do with this…
If anything, it appears that Kimbo did this without Gary Shaw’s knowledge, since he seemed ready to to promote him in boxing.
Did Zach really write both of these articles?
In Dana’s interview with Carmichael Dave, he says that he was negotiating with Kimbo (Dana was in Miami, Kimbo was in California) and Shaw went to the media and said Kimbo was preparing to box all while the TUF negotiations were being finalized.
Also, why is it only Rampage ’standing up the for Black man’? Is Rashad playing the Uncle Tom role?
This statement from Dana White about Junie Browning and Kimbo Slice is hilarious on several different levels:
“”It’s easy to say we sit back and think about the ratings all time. (Sure) I want the ratings to be good, we want to stay on Spike. But I’m not going to do anything that hurts the business or the reputation of the UFC by keeping someone on the show. I’ll never do that.””
Also, it looks like someone finally figured out that UFC contracts have lifetime no-compete clauses if you’re a UFC champion: http://sports.yahoo.com/mma/blog/cagewriter/post/Fedor-says-UFC-contract-terms-stink?urn=mma,167990
Finally, Ivan?
This was one of the things that was bandied about way over a year ago when UFC last failed to sign Fedor.
Ivan, I think the key is “while” you are a UFC champion.
Fedor knew (knows) that if he signed a UFC contract he’d win the title, and likely not lose it.
Back when they were negotiating with Fedor in 2008, Nogueira was the champion. I think we all know how a fourth Fedor/Nog fight would have gone.
And I have a hard time believing Lesnar, Mir or Couture would present more of a problem to Fedor than Sylvia or Arlovski (and we saw how those fights went).
So I guess he doesn’t want to sign into slavery and not be allowed to leave?
Fedor could just barge into Zuffa HQ and threaten to break his thumb every time he wants his way.