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Would you be willing to watch Herschel Walker vs. Kimbo Slice? Would you watch if you had to pay to see it?
By Zach Arnold | May 11, 2010
It’s interesting that the most talk about Strikeforce right now is whether or not they will book Herschel Walker vs. Kimbo Slice, rather than the focus being on their St. Louis show this Saturday…
Which brings us to a discussion that Steve Cofield of Cagewriter.com and Kevin Iole of Yahoo Sports had about Kimbo Slice being cut from UFC and whether or not Matt Mitrione will become a legitimate Heavyweight contender in UFC.
START TRANSCRIPT
STEVE COFIELD: “So, we’re checking in and we have so much to talk about from UFC 113 with Kevin Iole. We got to talk about Kimbo. Kimbo is now gone, at least that’s what they’re saying, that’s what Dana White said after the fight. He loses to Matt Mitrione. The argument started immediately on Twitter, online, with some media guys saying ‘Thank God he’s gone, no one wants to pay for this guy,’ and you know I kind of fired back and I said, ‘I don’t think you know the casual fan, I actually do think the casual fan would pay for another Kimbo fight.’ ”
KEVIN IOLE: “Yeah, I mean… I don’t have a problem with the decision to cut him because you know who’s he going to beat? I have respect for Kimbo and I go back to his Elite XC days. I was not among the Kimbo bashers. In the Elite XC days, my take was, ‘Hey, the guy can’t fight, but he’s trying to learn now,’ I don’t think he was in the kind of camp that was benefiting him in his Elite XC days and I think he had you know a year and a half, two years whatever that was, basically that were wasted because he wasn’t getting the kind of instruction in overall MMA coaching that he needed, but then when he went on TUF and came into the UFC, he got hooked up with ATT and clearly they were working very hard with him and you could see that he made progress, but he was starting from such a low point. He was a zero that you know I mean can he get there? You know maybe he could if they would give him a longer period of time, although you know I think that there’s a couple of points that you have to bring up. You know, his reputation is as a puncher, as a banger. He does not have a big punch. I said that, you know, in your infamous radio interview with $kala, Jared Shaw, where he said that there’s nobody in MMA that can stand with Kimbo and I thought that was one of the most ridiculous comments I’ve ever heard, you know, Kimbo is not a hard puncher and if he was a hard puncher I think he would have been more willing to stand with Matt Mitrione but he didn’t even have confidence in his own punching power except he wanted to take Mitrione to the ground. So from the standpoint of competitiveness, I don’t think there’s a lot of guys in the UFC that he can beat and really even be competitive with, so that’s one thing. I do think that the fans, you know, there’s an intrigue about him, the luster is going to wear off as he successive performance is bad. We didn’t see the Kimbo power against Houston Alexander, we didn’t see it in TUF against Roy Nelson, and certainly we saw no evidence of it against Mitrione, so the next fight I don’t think that Kimbomania would have been as big as it was before this fight, but I still think some fans would have been interested. Maybe one more loss and that would have been it, so the UFC got ahead of the curve and said, ‘You know what Kimbo? You know you’re not ready to compete in the top organization right now,’ so you know, good luck and maybe we’ll see you later.”
STEVE COFIELD: “With that said, we rarely see guys cut after two fights after going just one-and-one, so was there an extra money element to this where you know it wasn’t just worth their while in terms of the money?”
KEVIN IOLE: “Well, guys are cut after one fight, I mean let’s look at the Rolles Gracie, I mean you know and I think if Rolles Gracie had shown anything he’d be around with the last name that he has, I mean there’s a guy that Kimbo can compete you know Rolles Gracie, but you know Kimbo is making a lot of money and he wasn’t performing at a high very level which you know I think UFC rightly realized that, hey, you know going forward, you know you’re going to lose whatever hardcore fan interest you had, you’re going to lose them. The casual fan I think you’re going to lose some of them because you know the mystique is being wiped away with each success fight. You know, let’s be honest, Matt Mitrione is 1-0 going into the fight, I mean it’s not like you know he was fighting Cain Velasquez, I mean he was fighting a guy that I think is a talented guy that has some raw potential that could be developed but Matt Mitrione is certainly no threat today to win the Heavyweight title and Kimbo was not at all competitive with him.”
STEVE COFIELD: “Yeah. The checking of leg kicks was amateurish, it was pretty bad. So, going from here, if you’re Strikeforce, do you take a chance on Kimbo? Do you match him up, why not just put him in there with a guy like Herschel Walker? Would that be a mismatch? That would be a fight that you could sell. Or is he so down now it’s not worth any money, any amount of money for a US promotion to bring him in?”
KEVIN IOLE: “I personally don’t think that’s a good move for Strikeforce. You know, I just think it opens them up to more criticism. I think Kimbo, you know, goes to Japan if he continues to fight and I think that’s where he would be the best and I think you know the Japanese tend to like fighters with that kind of look, you know, it’s a different look and they like that. I think that you know Kimbo would have some success, can make some money over there. You know if you put him in Strikeforce they got some real fighters in Strikeforce and you know while Herschel Walker is a newcomer to the sport and maybe Kimbo beats Herschel Walker… I’d have to think about it, but you know beyond that where do you go with the guy? So I think you know hey, let him go to Japan and see what he does. You know, Kimbo also has to decide, ‘Do I want to do this going forward?’ ”
STEVE COFIELD: “We should give Matt Mitrione a little love, Meathead did a good job and you know he showed some versatility. Obviously he was drilled very well by Pat Berry and came up with a nice game plan and he’s a good athlete.”
KEVIN IOLE: “He is. Obviously he played in the NFL, he was a four-year starter at Purdue so you know you have to be a fairly good athlete. You know, Steve, I think Mitrione has a lot of ability. Now, you know, he’s kind of coming again from ground zero and you know he’s fighting in the UFC that had he not gotten on TUF and gotten a break you know he wouldn’t be anywhere close to the UFC, so you know whether there are guys out there in other organizations that are better than he is? Right now, sure there are. But I think that he’s a guy that can develop and you know he may have to go out of the UFC to really you know speed up his development, get where he wants to be because I think as he moves up the latter he’s not going to get these kind of you know soft touches that he’s gotten. You know it turns out Marcus Jones, you know, a great guy and a guy that you wish would succeed just because of the kind of human being Marcus is, you know, Marcus just didn’t have a chin to compete in MMA especially against anybody of any note and then Kimbo, you know, is very limited but so Mitrione when he starts to face some legitimate people, you know there’s a big question there with him.”
END TRANSCRIPT
Other news & notes
Remember the transcript I did of a Dana White interview before UFC 113 in Montreal? He said at that time that the winner of Rampage/Rashad wouldn’t necessarily be the #1 contender for the winner of Machida/Shogun. Well, a few days later, you can throw that out of the window. Josh Gross asks what’s next for Shogun.
Interested in seeing Roy Nelson vs. Junior dos Santos in the UFC?
Dana White told CNBC on Monday that UFC’s video game last year sold four million copies. He seems happy with the way business is going.
A promotion called Honour Combat Championships will run an MMA event in Vancouver on 5/21.
I’m still trying to figure out why Hector Lombard vs. Paulo Filho is happening in Monroe, Louisiana this Thursday, but it sure is for Bellator.
Here’s a story about a woman named Tracy Tate who has a women’s MMA clothing line called Cage Candy that she hopes can draw a demographic that a lot of MMA t-shirt makers have tried to conquer. Wild woman. Her Twitter account is here and her MySpace is here.
- Franklin McNeil (ESPN): Dana White sends message to fans, fighters
- Head Kick Legend: The over/under on Strikeforce partnering with Simon Rutz and It’s Showtime
- Sherdog: Don King files for injunction against Ricardo Mayorga, Shine Fights
- The National Post (Canada): A look inside the UFC’s traveling circus
Topics: Media, MMA, StrikeForce, UFC, Zach Arnold | 25 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
I definitely wouldn’t be paying if it was the headliner or co-main event.
If they put on a card with Fedor vs. Overeem, Diaz vs. Miller, King Mo, Melendez, Rogers then sure. But at that point why pay Kimbo so much money? I guess the casuals + Kimbo crew would drive demand, but I’m not buying a card with Walker vs. Slice anywhere near the top.
Fightnews says today that Mayweather/Mosley did 1.4 million buys. I’m really starting to wonder about Iole’s sources.
As for Kimbo/Walker: People would watch it. It would be a big spectacle. Might even get them back on CBS if they could offer that. I would probably watch it (drunk). Does it really matter to me or to the sport that it gets made? Nah.
“Fightnews says today that Mayweather/Mosley did 1.4 million buys. I’m really starting to wonder about Iole’s sources.”
I’d be tempted to say it’s more of an issue about his sycophantic tendancies as the media arm of the UFC, but given the fact that he’s also a long time know-nothing boxing kiss-ass, I’m not sure what’s going on.
Only 1.4 million buys? What a complete and total failure!
“This guy will run around in circles, OK, everybody wants to know why the UFC is becoming so popular is because they’re sick of boxers not fighting! You’re going to pay whatever it is, $55, $60 bucks to see Floyd basically you get to see Dancing with the Stars again with Floyd Mayweather except you have to pay for it this time, OK? You got to pay $60 bucks to watch Floyd Mayweater in Dancing with the Stars again”
– Dana White
Iole finally gets it right:
“• HBO announced on Tuesday, a full 10 days since the fight, that the Mayweather-Shane Mosley bout did 1.4 million pay-per-view buys and generated $78.3 million in pay-per-view revenue.
It is the second largest non-heavyweight pay-per-view of all time, trailing only the 2007 fight between Mayweather and Oscar De La Hoya. That bout did 2.45 million.
De La Hoya’s 1999 fight with Felix Trinidad had been No. 2 on the list for non-heavyweight pay-per-views, also at 1.4 million.
Normally, HBO announces the pay-per-view figures four to five days after an event. • Mayweather-Mosley doubled the total of 700,000 Pacquiao did against Joshua Clottey in March, though Mosley is far more well known than Clottey.
• Mayweather probably belongs in the all-time Top 25 at this point. In his excellent 2006 book, “Boxing’s Greatest Fighters,” historian Bert Sugar ranks the Top 100 fighters ever.”
I have not read your article or watched the video so this is just in response to your article title questions. I would definitely watch Walker vs. Slice and would probably be a little excited to watch it. But there is no way I would consider paying for it. I don’t think I would pay to watch any Kimbo or Herschel fight regardless of the opponent.
What number did Iole say for the Mayweather fight? It was 1.2 Million I believe. Which is fairly close. Much closer then another report Isaw posted which had the PPV closer to 2 Million.
I thought the UFC would have kept Kimbo on for one more fight and kill his value even more. But I guess as Iole pointed out…. When you have nobody on your roster that you think he can beat…. It’s time to get rid of him.
I do think his value is diminished more then people realize. A few casual fans I have talked to though Kimbo’s career was over after that fight. He really did cone of poorly.
As for Strikeforce…. I’m not sure what the correct course of action is for them. They can’t sign Kimbo to a guaranteed multiple-fight deal because with each of his fights, his value goes down.
Plus, putting on Walker/Kimbo reeks of freakshow at a time when try ate trying to act like a real MMA organization.
My guess is that Strikeforce signs Kimbo. And they put on Walker/Kimbo. And I would understand why they would do so. But man, that would make Couture/Toney look legit by comparison.
Plus, if you give the fans a freakshow, those fans don’t come back for the real fights. They didn’t for EliteXC or the UFC. They didn’t in Japan. And they won’t for Strikeforce. So if their goal is to use Kimbo to build a bigger fan base, it’s one epic fail. You need to build fight fans organically with good fights.
What MMA fans think of Kimbo Slice does not matter. He has his own army of fans that don’t care how bad he looks, they will still support him. Of course that’s pretty worthless if you can’t make them support anything else you do, but it’s good enough for dependable TV ratings at least.
At the end of the day, you still need to win…. Or at least give the perception of being competitive to get those fans back.
His fans won’t be around for ever…. And even for the last UFC PPV it felt like his fans had dwindled. The Kimbo hype was already down….
Would you be willing to watch Herschel Walker vs. Kimbo Slice? Would you watch if you had to pay to see it?
I’d watch it for free. I wouldn’t pay to see it.
No, I wouldn’t pay 5 cents to see this fight. I wouldn’t even pay to see this fight if the proceeds were going to orphans. I don’t think anybody would. Like I’ve said dozens of times, Kimbo’s fanbase is too young to order pay per views. He should be kept on television as a special attraction to draw in his idiotic fans who have no respect for true MMA as a way to stay on television. Because right now, with Fedor always a wild card, Dan Henderson ruined and Gina probably finished with MMA, he’s the only thing they can bank on since Walker probably won’t be around long with his age.
And I think Walker will beat Kimbo by decision. Walker is awful but he has fantastic cardio and Kimbo was blown up in less than 5 minutes Saturday. Kimbo’s KO power is very questionable as well, so I say Walker survive Kimbo coming at him for round 1 and outworks him for 2 and 3.
Maybe Strikeforce can first do a Canseco vs. Kimbo fight to set up the big Walker vs. Kimbo payoff! (Except Canseco might tag Kimbo and drop him)
So is that counting worldwide buys? I highly doubt Iole has sources in the puerto rican ppv market for example.
Of course I’d love to see Walker vs Kimbo on free TV. I wouldn’t buy it though even if it was $10.
Paulo Filho backed out of his Bellator fight. Which is no shock. Filho now has killed his chances of ever getting in the UFC, Strikeforce, or Bellator. I wonder if he has burned his bridges in Japan yet.
I definitely think that Coker should sign Kimbo.
He still has some life left in him as a draw IMO. Of course, this would be contingent upon Kimbo signing for a ( lot ) more reasonable $$$ than he has in the past.
As long as that could be worked out then I see no reason why Coker wouldn’t want to book him for a bit.
Tarnished though his name & mystique may be, he does still have fans out there who will tune in to watch him fight.
Enough for PPV? Hell, no.
But for Showtime, sure. And for CBS as well if matched right.
Should his bouts be main events?
Absolutely not.
But, I see no harm in using him as a “special added attraction”. Much like what Bob Arum did with Butterbean back in the ’90s.
And the people loved it.
He wasn’t ever top billed in a PPV ( aside from Larry Holmes’ final fight ) or on an HBO or Showtime event, but ay his peak he was always good as extra added incentive for fans to buy a PPV or tune into a card or buy a ticket at the site.
Did those fans care that he got stopped easily by a 2-8 fighter early in his career? Nope.
Nor do I think that Kimbo’s recent slide of going 1-2 ( or 1-3 if you count the Nelson match ) will matter so much if booked properly.
If Walker is willing, then by all means Coker should do his best at making a fight between him & Kimbo. As long as he surround it with other world class MMA on the card.
Then, if Kimbo gets past Walker ( which I Beleive he would with relative ease ) they could find another fighter or athlete with name recognition or a “story” of some sort to match him with.
Coker could get a lot of milage out of it for a while if done right.
Sure, some would condemn it as a “freakshow”, but Arum was accused of the same thing with Butterbean & he entertained a lot of people & made a lot of money with it.And at the end of the day, isn’t that what sports is, a form of entertainment?
If I was a promoter, I’d be demanding that Filho put up at least his ‘to fight’ money as a bond before I advertised him for my event. The man is nothing but a liability at this point.
Fihlo was a liability after he fought Chael Sonnen a second time on WEC. After that who ever uses him at this point deserves to be laughed at.
Is Kimbo really a big enough draw to justify signing him for any kind of significant payday? The guy is just not viable as a competitor in MMA. Mitrione is a bum and he could not even beat him. Dana White made the right decision to cut him imo.
I think, ya know, it depends what you define as, ya know, “justifying” signing him to a, ya know, significant payday.
I think, if it’s to sell a PPV I believe, I think, the answer is almost definitely, I think, a “NO.”
But if you’re someone like say, I dunno, I think, a Strikeforce who has say, a shaky network deal, and you need a guy like him to convince the execs to let you back on their networks and to pop a big rating to put your deal back on the track – then, I think, ya know, it’s almost definitely a resounding “YES.”
What they do with that viewership and those ratings (i.e. build up other fighters, build towards potential future fights) is the key to it all.
No i wouldn’t pay to see those noobs go at it.
One is an old Tae Kwon Do guy the other a street brawler.
Why would anyone want to see the fight each other?
For what would they fight, besides money? Not a belt not a ranking just out of selfish reason. Proving something to themselves while stealing attention and maincard spots from others that are in for the long run and for the belt and the love for the sport.
Strikefarce are attention wh*r*s that would do almost anything to get coverage.
Guess that’s the big negative to it when you are in bed with Showtime.
Showtime wants to sell a spectacle and freakshow instead of introducing MMA to a bigger audience.
And Kimbo Slice vs Herschel Walker would be nothing else than a freakshow to grab attention and have MMA look like something in between boxing and fake men’s oil & tan ‘restling.
I respect both Kimbo and Herschel but grabing the spotlight from younger upcoming fighters isn’t right at all.
I wouldn’t care if every 5 events of StrikeFarce would be complete freakshow matchups cards.
That way they could even grab more attention and i had an easier time avoiding sh*t like that.
You had to be kind of naive to not think that Jackson or Evans would get the winner (barring injury). They’re booked back to back, and this is probably UFC’s best chance of getting a quick turnaround on a championship fight this year. It’s already May. If the winner of Jackson vs Evans doesn’t come out with a medical suspension, you could have this booked for August.
As long as they don’t make them coaches on TUF after…
I’ll be really excited to see how Shogun and Rampage match up all these years later in a cage. And frankly I’d be interested to see Shogun against a fast wrestler like Rashad.
I think Shogun is back in much better shape physically and mentally and his bjj from the bottom is more than enough against the wrestling of either Evans/Jackson. But I still don’t know how his gas tank will hold up if he’s constantly working for sweeps/escapes/subs with these guys. I think he’ll tear either of them apart on their feet, but he’s never been the best guy at keeping it there.
“Would you be willing to watch Herschel Walker vs. Kimbo Slice?”
Sure, I guess it wouldn’t kill me.
Would you watch if you had to pay to see it?
Nope.
But a lot of people would.
And that help pay for the fights and fighters that I do want to see, so I still approve.