Kimbo Slice opened up about his third round technical knockout win over Dada 5000 on last night (Fri., Feb. 19, 2016) at Bellator 149 inside Toyota Center in Houston, Texas.
HOUSTON — You can’t say that it wasn’t entertaining … even if the feeling was fleeting.
Most thought Kimbo Slice (6-2) and Dada 5000 (2-1) were on a crash course that would end within several minutes of the first round in their fight at Bellator 149 last night (Fri., Feb. 19, 2016). But, what unfolded inside Toyota Center in Houston, Texas, was truly an odd and strange fight encounter where exhaustion was getting the better of both fighters in a poor display of conditioning, where to win was merely a matter of surviving.
Is this the kind of fights Spike and Bellator want to be known for?
“We want to entertain fans and we want to get viewers, but we let Scott and his team come up with the fights and we broadcast team and we do a good job broadcasting and we are excited to do it. But, at the end of the day we let him put on the product and we put it on TV,” said Spike TV senior vice president of sports, Jon Slusser.
To watch Kimbo Slice vs. Dada 5000 full fight video highlights click here.
Slice, 42 scored a few takedowns in the bout and as the fight wore on both fighters had almost nothing left. There punches lacked power, their movement slowed to almost a stand still and at one point after a stand up by referee Big John McCarthy, Dada took several seconds to get back up to his feet.
It was Slice, the former YouTube sensation, who would prevail, as Dada — without really getting hit with a punch –corkscrewed backward and stumbled until face planting into the canvas as referee McCarthy waved it off for good (watch it again here).
The official time of the stoppage came at 1:32 of round three. Dada was carried off on a stretcher and taken to a nearby hospital for precautionary reasons.
Slice was asked at the Bellator 149 post-fight press conference if he was tired.
“Not any more,” he told MMAMania, before elaborating on surviving and finding a way to get the victory.
“Losing is not an option for me. You got to really beat the hell out of me in there. I’m not going to never give up. I don’t care if you have a submission you are going to have to break it or put me to sleep. And if you got better hands than me you are going to have to knock me out. It’s silly for the ref to stop it. I’m that type of fighter. You know what I’m saying? I’m not going to never, ever give up in a fight. As long as I can breathe and get back to my feet, we are going to go.”
Slice had bragged earlier in the week about submissions and about working more diligently on his ground game. Was he proud of landing that first takedown and showing everyone he was capable?
“Man, I’ve seen a lot of submissions I wanted to go for, Mikey,” he paused to call out his head coach from American Top Team, Mike Brown. “But, he said let’s just go for the old-fashioned KO. I saw a few things I wanted to go for, but he said ‘let’s stick to the game plan.’
“I’m a witness,” Royce Gracie chimed in. “He was practicing for a foot lock in the locker room. Mike’s like, ‘nope, don’t do it.'”
Slice, who weighed in at 232 pounds for the fight, said he “underestimated the weight” of Dada, who came in at 265 pounds.
“I should’ve trained with a little bit more bigger guys and get used to that weight,” he said. “He is a pretty strong dude. He took punches better than I thought. But, hard work in training camp pays off.”
As for what’s next, Slice said he’d like to fight in July and get back into training and is “down to fight anybody.”
With the kind of fights we’ve seen in Bellator lately, Sean Gannon was brought up as a potential opponent. Gannon was the only fighter to defeat Slice back in his bareknuckle days.
“He suffered a lot of damages in that bareknuckle fight,” Slice said proudly. “He pretty much got cut up everywhere. If he signs a contract then hopefully we can do it. I don’t back down from a fight.”