‘That’s the best thing I’ve ever seen in my life!’
Sopranos fans, remember the Tony vs. Bobby Bacala Monopoly brawl in season six? It was basically an ugly exchange involving a pair of brutes trying to rip each other’s heads off.
Take out the head butt, and add a bit of technique and a frenzied mob inside a barely finished warehouse office gym, and you got this fight between Kimbo Slice and Massachusetts police officer turned one-time UFC veteran Sean Gannon.
Now, I don’t really know the exact rules of these fights, but headlocks and knee strikes are apparently unacceptable. They allow collar ties, ground-and-pound, and wrestling against the wall. No hand wraps or gloves, and a mouth guard seems optional. The fight goes on until one man can’t anymore.
Athleticism? Finesse? Forget about it. Kimbo had cinder blocks for hands, and that made him a draw. If you’re the other guy, having your face looking like a mangled mess afterward wasn’t a yes or no question.
Cardio wasn’t really Kimbo’s strongest suit, though. As he is during fights, fatigue did him in on this one. But it was enough to give out the Griffin-Bonnar I vibes for everyone in attendance. Both men deserve their props for leaving it all out there for the sake of entertainment.
After a two-year MMA career that ended with one fight in the UFC, Gannon continued to be a police officer and made headlines when he became a whistleblower. His name recently resurfaced as part of viral tweets during the onset of the Black Lives Matter protests in June, when he was sacked after reporting a fellow officer for rape.
Gannon stated during an AMA session on Reddit three years ago, that he turned in a “dirty cop that was framing innocent black teens” to the FBI and his “reward” was getting fired.