Tag: kimbo slice

Conspiracy Hanging Over Bellator: Was Kimbo vs. Shamrock Fake?

Last Friday’s inevitable showdown between Kimbo Slice and Ken Shamrock was like watching an episode of Jersey Shore. We all knew it would be a train wreck, but we couldn’t look away.
So we watched as a 51-year-old UFC Hall of Famer stepped …

Last Friday’s inevitable showdown between Kimbo Slice and Ken Shamrock was like watching an episode of Jersey Shore. We all knew it would be a train wreck, but we couldn’t look away.

So we watched as a 51-year-old UFC Hall of Famer stepped into the cage against a 41-year-old street fighter turned MMA fighter. Neither had competed in the last five years.

“The World’s Most Dangerous Man” or “The World’s Oldest Man to Headline a Bellator Event” was ushered into the cage by members of his family and Road Warrior Animal, a professional wrestling legend. Meanwhile, Kimbo entered the cage, jumbo beard and all, with highlights of some of his best backyard knockouts playing on the big screen.

There was definitely excitement in the air, but it wasn’t the kind you’d expect from a major MMA promotion with a legitimate stable of talent. This had the rumblings of a spectacle. It took me back to the days of running through high school corridors alongside my classmates to catch the weekly brawl in the cafeteria.

To put it bluntly, the circus was in town.

Bellator 138 even received a cutesy title to go along with its headliner—“Unfinished Business.” It was a bit ironic considering Slice and Shamrock’s business was finished a long time ago. Shamrock had only won two fights in the last decade, and Kimbo had settled into a career of taking fights against no-named boxers.

Yet there they stood in the center of the cage serving as a headliner for a major MMA event. The bout started with Shamrock shooting in for a takedown and Kimbo falling backwards like a ton of bricks. He immediately transitioned to Kimbo’s back and sunk in the leg hooks, while attempting to slip his arm under Kimbo’s chin for a rear-naked choke.

After grimacing for a few seconds, Kimbo hulked up and manually peeled Shamrock’s arm from his neck, allowing space for an escape. Once he made it back to his feet, Kimbo stalked Shamrock to the cage before dropping him with a thunderous right hand.

And that was all, folks. The bout ended, Kimbo and Shamrock hugged it out and the Scottrade Center in St. Louis emptied. It was the culmination of months of promotional effort behind a pair of non-contenders who might never fight again. Even the Bellator featherweight title fight between Patricio Freire and Daniel Weichel took a backseat to this grudge match.

Many aren’t convinced the fight was real to begin with. Here’s what UFC commentator Joe Rogan had to say about Kimbo’s first-round TKO over Shamrock on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast show:

That fight looked fake as f–k. There’s a couple things I don’t like about that fight. I don’t like that clinch. That long clinch that they had when they were mouth to ear. They were mouth to each other’s ears for a long f—–g time. To me, the whole thing… the entrance looked so suspect because he was shaking everybody’s hand. It didn’t look like he was about to go to a fight. It looked like he was about to go put on a performance.

UFC heavyweight Brendan Schaub echoed Rogan’s suspicions during the show:

If you watch Kimbo fight when he was in the UFC, when he was fighting Mitrione and Houston Alexander, that m———–r’s taking it serious. Now when he fought Ken Shamrock, he’s talking to him in the ring before the entrance. The baddest m———–r on the Earth really don’t talk like that.

Katie Nolan, the host of Fox Sports 1’s Garbage Time, didn’t hold back when criticizing the Bellator 138 main event, either.

If the fight was a ruse, Kimbo and Shamrock didn’t put much effort into making it enjoyable enough to warrant a rematch. We’ve seen better performances from WWE’s Eugene. This is where the conspiracy talk nosedives a bit for me.

My expectations are exceptionally low for both fighters during this twilight juncture in their careers. Shamrock, in particular, is in the post-twilight era of his career. Did people actually expect to be wowed in a professional fight between middle-aged men?

We weren’t witnessing Randy Couture or Dan Henderson here.

However, I would be naïve to completely ignore the spectacle-driven hype for this fight. The over-the-top trash-talking, embellished entrances and few punches thrown in the actual fight was a bit fishy.

But in the end, I keep getting brought back to the notion of sanity and professional competition. Shamrock wouldn’t purposely eat a free right hand from Kimbo Slice to throw a fight he’d gone all-in to train for—right?

 

Jordy McElroy is a featured columnist for Bleacher Report. He also is the MMA writer for FanRag Sports and co-founder of The MMA Bros.

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Kimbo Slice Vows MMA Return: ‘I’m Here to Stay’

Kimbo Slice may have finally gotten a piece of Ken Shamrock, but the YouTube star says his road to redemption doesn’t end at Bellator 138. Speaking with media following the Bellator 138 post-fight press conference, Slice said that his fighting days are…

Kimbo Slice may have finally gotten a piece of Ken Shamrock, but the YouTube star says his road to redemption doesn’t end at Bellator 138. Speaking with media following the Bellator 138 post-fight press conference, Slice said that his fighting days are not over just yet:

“I believe I’m here to stay,” he said in an interview with Luke Thomas of MMAFighting.com. “I’m still learning, back to training on Monday, and it’s not going to stop here.”

For those who missed it, Slice posted a huge come-from-behind win over a bonafide MMA legend in the card’s main event. Shamrock dominated Slice in the early going of their bout, taking him down repeatedly and nearly submitting him with a rear-naked choke. Remarkably, Slice escaped and quickly landed a series of right hands that left Shamrock in a heap, earning the knockout victory at 2:22 of Round 1.

While Slice is well past his athletic prime at age 40, he said he was in no rush to get back into the cage. When asked if a quick turnaround was possible, Slice did not quite come off as a hungry up-and-comer, saying his next bout “would have to be the right kind of fight, respectfully,” but did not shut the door on fighting in the near future.

“Being a senior fighter, once you get over 35 and get close to your 40s…you want to just be smart in your opponents,” he said. “To fight again in 2015, yeah I feel great. It would be up to the matchmakers, my manager, Scott [Coker]. Wherever the chips lie, I’m there.”

Unfortunately, Bellator has a relatively limited number of options available for Slice, who is in an awkward position of deserving a fellow name-brand opponent, but nobody that is in the thick of title contention. While luring another MMA legend out of retirement is likely the best choice, former Strikeforce fighter and 1982 Heisman Trophy winner Herschel Walker may have slid into the discussion with his recent admission, via Thomas, that he wants to return to the cage.

With the sheer amount of attention Slice’s fight garnered, however, Bellator will likely be clamoring for him to return reasonably quickly. We shall see what the future holds for him and Bellator.

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Kimbo Slice vs. Ken Shamrock: Video Highlights of Bellator 138 Main Event

The Bellator 138 main event between Kimbo Slice and Ken Shamrock delivered, there’s no doubt about that. What, exactly, did it deliver? Well, that’s up for debate.
Check out the full fight video highlights here, courtesy of ESPN.com:

Shamrock was more…

The Bellator 138 main event between Kimbo Slice and Ken Shamrock delivered, there’s no doubt about that. What, exactly, did it deliver? Well, that’s up for debate.

Check out the full fight video highlights here, courtesy of ESPN.com:

Shamrock was more than aware that his best chance of defeating Slice lied in exploiting his lack of grappling experience, and he did his best to capitalize. As soon as the bell rang, Shamrock shot for a double-leg takedown. While Slice would defend, Shamrock continued to apply pressure with his wrestling, eventually upending him with a strong single.

The Baddest Man on the Planet immediately took advantage, advancing position, taking Slice’s back and sinking in a deep, deep rear-naked choke. While a tap seemed imminent, Shamrock just couldn’t seal the deal and was forced to let go.

Slice would muscle his way back to his feat, and landed a hard uppercut during the scramble. The punch staggered Shamrock, and Slice would follow up with a hellacious series of right hands. A devastating straight landed hard to Shamrock’s eye and dropped him into the corner of the cage. When Slice moved in for some ground-and-pound, referee John McCarthy would wave the fight to a close.

It is a disappointing turn for fans of the MMA legend. Shamrock’s rear-naked choke looked airtight to the point where it felt strange that Slice was able to escape, and more than a few folks (some famous) on Twitter questioned the legitimacy of the fight.

Where Shamrock goes from here is tough to call and will likely hinge on Bellator 138’s ratings and the availability of worthwhile opponents. Slice, however, stated at the post-fight press conference that he intends to return to the cage, and there are a slew of interesting options for him in Bellator.

So what say you, fans? Do you want to see either man return to the cage? Who would you like to see them face?

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Somehow, Kimbo Slice and Ken Shamrock Pull off Perfect End to Bellator’s Circus

It was either going to be quick, or it was going to be bad.
Those were about the only two options on Friday night, when Bellator MMA dusted off 51-year-old Ken Shamrock to fight 41-year-old Kimbo Slice in a nationally televised main event bout.
Luckily…

It was either going to be quick, or it was going to be bad.

Those were about the only two options on Friday night, when Bellator MMA dusted off 51-year-old Ken Shamrock to fight 41-year-old Kimbo Slice in a nationally televised main event bout.

Luckily for nearly everyone involved—with the notable exception of Shamrock—it was the former.

Slice saw to that, surviving a deep rear naked choke attempt and flattening Shamrock with a winging right hand in just two minutes, 21 seconds. Along the way, Bellator MMA pulled off the unthinkable, squeezing a halfway entertaining fight out of two middle-aged men who had not competed in MMA since 2010.

From the moment Bellator CEO Scott Coker announced this unlikely do-over—an effort to finally get Slice and Shamrock in the cage after the idea failed so miserably for EliteXC back in 2008—we all knew what was up. Coker was running a very short con, cashing-in on the legend and booking a meeting between a pair of over-the-hill guys who a lifetime ago had individually appeared in the No. 1-2 rated fights in MMA history.

It was not a new strategy. Promoters of all stripes have been opting for similar ploys for generations. Even if the bearded lady’s whiskers are just glued on, the attraction gets customers through the door. Once they’re there, maybe they’ll buy a soda pop and a ball of caramel corn.

In this case, the soda pop for Bellator was featherweight champion Patrício Freire, who scored an amazing come-from-behind KO win over Daniel Weichel in the evening’s co-main event. The caramel corn was lightweight Michael Chandler, who snapped a three-fight losing skid by rolling over Derek Campos in the first televised bout of the fight.

Even if Slice and Shamrock weren’t expected to turn in a good fight—and, believe me, they weren’t—Bellator was hoping name recognition and curiosity would get people to tune it. Once they were there, the fight company hoped they’d be impressed by guys like Freire and Chandler. Maybe impressed enough to come back.

While ratings numbers likely won’t be known for a few days, the fighters clearly did their part. Friere’s win was complete insanity, and Chandler looked great dismantling Campos. Bellator also got good performances from heavyweight Bobby Lashley and featherweight Daniel Straus, and made sure to plug Tito Ortiz’s upcoming shot at the light heavyweight title, too.

The organization also pulled out all the stops production-wise. Bellator’s new stage set, adorned with a series of enormous HD video screens, continues to look wonderful on TV. Each of its marquee fighters got his own, stylized entrance and it even had Road Warrior Animal—one half of the legendary pro wrestling tag team the Legion of Doom—accompany Shamrock to the cage.

It all made for a circus atmosphere. At the end of all the ballyhoo, however, a sort of interesting thing happened.

Slice and Shamrock didn’t completely disappoint.

Now this was a surprise. Prior to his own half-decade long absence from the sport, Shamrock had finished 4-10. Slice (real name: Kevin Ferguson) ended on a 1-2 skid in the UFC around the same time. Ken duffed through the prefight workouts his own manager posted on YouTube. Kimbo kept his shirt on at the weigh-ins.

Even as we all readily admitted that we would watch—and watch gleefully—as the two old warhorses rode back into battle, we kind of hated ourselves for it.

Theirs didn’t quite shape up as a freak show fight, but it certainly tested the limits of what a state athletic commission should sanction. Shamrock weighed in beneath the light heavyweight limit at 204.4 pounds on Thursday, looking tanned and half-crazy, as ripped as we’ve ever seen him, with his goofy Wolverine sideburns died jet black. Slice tipped the scales at 232—arms notably less defined than before, his middle noticeably softer.

But once they got out there, they at least turned in some decent action.

Shamrock clearly wanted nothing to do with Slice on the feet. He shot for takedowns from the opening bell and clung tightly to the once-feared street brawler in the clinch. When he succeeded in landing a ponderous double leg just over a minute into the fight, many probably thought the end was near for Slice.

It almost was. Shamrock locked up what looked like a fairly tight choke and the fighters spent the next 50 seconds in that position on the mat. Somehow, though, Shamrock couldn’t finish and Slice eventually worked his way free.

As the two scrambled to their feet, Slice scored with an uppercut and then a series of slinging rights. When Slice landed the final thudding punch to the middle of his face, Shamrock fell back against the base of the fence, looking very much like a 50-year-old man who’d just been separated from his wits. Referee John McCarthy stepped in immediately to call it off.

It all seemed to happen just in time. Shamrock’s takedowns had not looked good and Slice’s inability to ward them off was even worse. Had things gone on much longer, it seems likely both men’s inadequacies would have come glaringly to the surface.

But they didn’t. It was mercifully short and sweet and nobody seemed to get seriously injured.

Because of Slice’s thunderous right and McCarthy’s on-the-spot awareness, we got in and out of this fight just in the nick of time.

Whether or not this event on the whole will constitute a big win for Bellator will likely have to wait until the TV numbers come in. Fans, however, seemed to see just enough to get their fill.

And not a second more, thankfully.

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“Garbage Time” Host Katie Nolan Thinks Kimbo Slice vs. Ken Shamrock Was a Fix

Katie Nolan is a rising star in the sports world. The host of Fox Sports 1’s “Garbage Time” offers a humorous look at sports on a weekly basis, and has one of the best Twitter profiles in all of sports. Bellator 138 hit her radar with the m…

Katie Nolan is a rising star in the sports world. The host of Fox Sports 1’s “Garbage Time” offers a humorous look at sports on a weekly basis, and has one of the best Twitter profiles in all of sports. Bellator 138 hit her radar with the main event of Kimbo Slice vs. Ken Shamrock.

The under-the-big-top style main event had wide appeal because of its circus nature, and the potential comedy surrounding the outcomes most certainly grabbed Nolan’s attention.

Before the fight even started she was on top of her game. Nolan called Shamrock “Sean Penn”, and suggested Bellator was being filmed as a local VFW. Her pre-fight tweets showcase her comedic talents even with an event with little to no consequence.

Slice would defeat Shamrock by TKO in just 2:22. This quick result most certainly caught Nolan’s eye and it was reflected in her instant commentary.

Nolan initially called it a UFC fight, but promptly corrected herself. She noted Bellator was a “weird creepy uncle” of the UFC. Honestly, it is not really that bad of an analogy if you are seeking one to explain Bellator to a friend. Nolan’s comedic touch only sharpened the edge for her opinion that this fight was a little fishy.

The “Garbage Time” host continued on post-fight to take a jab at Shamrock, and both fighter’s recent records.

To add to the comedy, the Twitter reactions of some Bellator fans in response to Nolan offered even more comedy surrounding the strange night of MMA action. Nolan was quick to respond to the criticism. The Fox Sports 1 host is continually a winner in the realm of social media, and Saturday night was no exception.

Given the fighters involved, their respective ages and recent results it is difficult to suggest that the fight was actual a work. However, I don’t believe it is that big of a leap for anyone to make – especially from an outside perspective. It was not a high-level bout in the slightest, and was most likely disappointing for a lot of viewers who tuned into the freakshow.

Nolan’s tweets were in good fun, but probably echo the thoughts of quite a few out in the sports world. It is what adds to the weight of her comedic tweets. There may be a sliver of truth behind it. The 140-character musing struck a chord with some fans, and made others chortle with pleasure. If anything can be taken away from the night it is that her tweets show that Bellator’s circus booking of Shamrock-Slice worked in generating widespread interest.

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No Shame in Ken Shamrock’s Loss to Kimbo, but His Fighting Days Are over

A little more than a month ago, my colleague Jonathan Snowden and I visited Ken Shamrock in San Diego.
Jonathan was there to work on a story about Shamrock’s preparations for his bout with Kimbo Slice. I was there mostly because I was curious. We’d hea…

A little more than a month ago, my colleague Jonathan Snowden and I visited Ken Shamrock in San Diego.

Jonathan was there to work on a story about Shamrock’s preparations for his bout with Kimbo Slice. I was there mostly because I was curious. We’d heard he was living in a motorhome behind a gym (by choice, not because of monetary issues), and I guess I wanted to see it for myself.

Because if the idea of Shamrock facing Slice struck you as a little bit ridiculous—and it probably did, and it’s OK if that’s the case—then the notion of one of MMA‘s living legends living a spartan existence with no running water while preparing for a fight against a man most famous for his backyard brawls on YouTube?

Let’s just say that I had to see it to believe it.

We attended a San Diego Padres game with Shamrock and his family. The thing that stuck with me from that day was this: Ken Shamrock is 51 years old, and he is in better shape than I’ll ever be. He isn’t just in great shape for a 51-year-old; he’s in great shape for a person, period. For a human.

Shamrock is 51 years old, and he is doing things men half his age don’t do. And that’s amazing.

But what he shouldn’t be doing is fighting. Not anymore.

Shamrock vs. Slice—the fight we all allegedly waited seven years for—is in the books. It was the perfect endcap to a night of spectacle and ridiculousness, which Bellator (under Scott Coker) is beginning to specialize in. Shamrock, escorted to the cage by the remaining living member of the Legion of Doom, milked every bit of the pro wrestling drama he learned during his days with Vince McMahon’s circus troupe.

And, in the end, the fight resembled a well-booked pro wrestling match. Shamrock started out grappling, taking Slice down easily. He secured a rear-naked choke, of sorts; it looked more like a sleeper hold of pro wrestling fame than an actual rear-naked choke, which begs the question: Did Shamrock, after decades of grappling, forget how to execute a submission hold on a man who is absolutely hapless in the grappling department?

For a few fleeting seconds, it looked like Shamrock would actually get the job done. Slice nearly tapped, or at least appeared to be on the verge of doing so. Announcer Jimmy Smith even screamed that Slice was out, only for Slice to immediately demonstrate that he was not, in fact, out.

And then Slice fought out of the rear-naked choke, stood on his feet and punched Shamrock in the face. And Shamrock, because he is 51 years old and has a chin long past the point of expiration, crumbled immediately.

It was the end, mercifully. Nobody was hurt, and that’s a win.

And we can only hope it was truly the end, though something tells me it won’t be.

Shamrock has been knocked out eight times over the past decade, first by Rich Franklin back in 2005. He has been knocked out by Tito Ortiz and Kazushi Sakuraba and Robert Berry and Mike Bourke and, at some point along the way, his chin vanished. It is gone.

But that is to be expected from a 51-year-old man who has spent a lifetime in combat sports.

There is no shame in it. Fifty-one-year-old men don’t fight each other in cages; 51-year-old men train others to fight in cages, or they play with their children and grandchildren.

And so here’s to hoping Shamrock, legend that he is, finds his way out of the cage for the last time and settles into something a little less violent.

He is deserving of that role, and it’s difficult to imagine him not finding such a place, if only he’ll take a step back to a place where punches are not being thrown.

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