Kimbo Slice‘s foray into real mixed martial arts didn’t pan out well for the former YouTube superstar.
Oh, he was fine when he was being paired up with hand-picked cans during the EliteXC days. Bo Cantrell, Tank Abbott and James Thompson were never going to present much in the way of actual opposition. It was a match made in heaven.
It didn’t last. We all saw what happened once Slice decided to try his hand in the UFC. I give him kudos for even trying his hand against top competition, but his act was still embarrassing.
And now, he’s boxing. Or at least something approximating the sport of boxing.
Last night in Springfield, Slice pushed his career boxing record to 4-0 by defeating Brian Green. With just three seconds left in the fight, Slice hit a glancing uppercut to Green’s chin and sent him crashing to the canvas.
By all accounts from live viewers in the arena, Green was handily winning the fight and was three seconds away from handing Slice his first boxing defeat. Keep in mind that Slice outweighs Green by a healthy amount. This was a fight that no sane commission in the world would have sanctioned, which is why it was held in Missouri. They don’t care about those sorts of things up there.
My buddy Mike Chiapetta over at MMAFighting had this to say:
It would be irresponsible to suggest that the late KO looked fishy, so we’ll leave that for you to decide for yourself. The early reactions, though, aren’t so favorable. Whether that’s due to Slice’s infamy or the actual punch that closes the show is up for debate. That said, we’ve seen worse finishes when it comes to lower-level boxing, so it’s all conjecture at this point, leaving Kimbo celebrate his win.
It may be irresponsible to say it, but I’m going to say it anyway: to me, this appeared to be a fixed fight. A single watch of the video, which I’ve embedded above, will lead you to the same conclusion.
Green had taken far bigger punches from Slice in the fourth round alone. The punch that “knocked him out” was a glancing uppercut that, and I mean this quite literally, wouldn’t really hurt anyone, much less knock them completely unconscious in such a comical way.
Boxing had a bad night on Saturday. We had the awful disqualification in the James Kirkland/Carlos Molina fight in Texas, and then we had Slice getting a win in a fight that was quite obviously not on the level.
Kudos to Slice for continuing to get paydays. I can’t fault him for doing it. And I’m not sure he even cares about being taken seriously. I’m not sure he ever really has.
But if he is, these are the kinds of things he’ll want to avoid in the future. If you can’t win a fight against an undersized opponent without the guy appearing to take a dive, it’s time to go back to street fights and protecting porn stars.
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