Kimbo Slice: The Man, The Myth, The Money

When it comes to MMA fighters, what’s in a name? When it comes to fighters who receive opportunities due to their perceived name value or a preceding reputation and not due to any proven in cage fighting abilities, how important is a name alone? Does it really mean that much?

Well, if you look at the MMA career of Kevin “Kimbo Slice” Ferguson, then the answer is a resounding “Yes. It means a hell of a lot.”

That’s not to say that Kimbo wasn’t a fighter. He absolutely was. Fighting was how he made his name, although where he made that name is what makes the difference.

Kimbo Slice is not a creation of a cage or a boxing ring. The moniker, the character, was created on the streets of South Florida where, after years working as a bouncer at a strip club and a bodyguard for a porn production company, Kimbo participated in a number of bare knuckle street fights.

Kimbo became quite successful in this realm, winning most of his fights (as far as we know), with many of them being recorded for consumption on the Internet, and boy were they consumed. In an era where Youtube was virtually non-existent, Kimbo was as viral as a star could be. People went crazy over this dude with a massive beard and a hulking presence who was knocking out dudes on airplane runways and behind gas stations.

He was building his brand.

But, for as much enjoyment as one could derive from unregulated street fights, Kimbo was a fighter at heart. After he began training in 2005 to continue his street fighting career (yes, he actually trained for it), he took an interest in MMA. He saw the competition the sport offered and the success he could achieve from it and, despite already having a good thing going, he wanted to take on the challenge.

And he showed promise from the start, choking out former boxing world champion Ray Mercer in his first exhibition bout in 2007. Granted, he used grappling on a man with no ground game but, before that fight, Kimbo didn’t have one either. In one minute and 12 seconds, he displayed an eagerness to be more than he was known for. He wanted to be a true well-rounded fighter.

This eagerness was not lost on EliteXC, the promotion that snatched Kimbo up and made him their marquee attraction. His first main event for the promotion, a 43 second knockout of former UFC standout and Kimbo’s brawler-in-arms Tank Abbott, drew half a million viewers to Showtime.

His next fight gave him his biggest distinction, as he was named the main event of the first MMA card to be broadcast on American network television. EliteXC: Primetime averaged 4.85 million viewers on CBS in 2008 with 6.51 million tuning in to see Kimbo defeat James Thompson by controversial TKO after a punch by Kimbo caused Thompson’s cauliflower ear to explode.

In less than a year, Kimbo had gone from just some guy fighting on the Internet to the most watched MMA fighter in the entire sport.

The ratings stayed strong for his next main event, at EliteXC: Heat. However, this was the night where the illusion that EliteXC had spent so much time and money trying to manufacture, that Kimbo Slice truly was the best fighter in the sport, fell apart.

This was the night where, after Ken Shamrock pulled out of the main event the day of the show, Seth Petruzelli stepped up to the plate and knocked Kimbo, as well as EliteXC itself, out of the park in just 14 seconds.

On this night, Kimbo wasn’t just defeated. He was embarrassed. He was trounced in the main event by a man who was scheduled for the prelims only hours before. To say that Kimbo’s name took a hit would be an understatement, but it didn’t deter him from trying to better himself and prove he belonged in the sport.

Kimbo made a statement in support of that argument by agreeing to appear on The Ultimate Fighter. Dana White said the only way he’d allowed Kimbo a chance to compete in the UFC was if he participated on the show and Kimbo was game to do so.

The decision proved beneficial for both Kimbo and the UFC as, while Kimbo lost his tournament fight, he was still a weekly staple of the show, contributing to an average viewing audience of 3 million viewers, making season 10 of TUF the most watched in the show’s history.

And you thought Rampage Jackson’s door destroying abilities were popular…

Kimbo didn’t win a contract on the show but he still got a chance to fight in the UFC. He competed twice, on The Ultimate Fighter Finale against Houston Alexander and at UFC 113 against Matt Mitrione, winning the former in an extremely slow, plodding affair and losing the latter by submission.

Kimbo never showed much improvement in his UFC career, and UFC clearly had little interest in having him in the company, but, by taking the opportunity, Kimbo showed a warrior’s heart and a fighting spirit that many of today’s UFC roster consistently fail to show.

After his UFC career ended, it seemed like that was it for the MMA chapter of Kimbo’s life. He mostly moved back into the life he had before, entering the boxing world to keep his name out in the open while giving him an outlet to continue his fighting career.

From 2011-2013, Kimbo had 7 boxing matches, winning them all, with 6 by knockout. Granted, he wasn’t facing world beaters (the combined records of his opponents were 16-19), and there were plenty of questions about his opponents throwing fights, but at least beating up nobodies in a boxing ring is more respectable than beating up nobodies in an empty parking lot.

What was truly impressive about this period, and is a big part of Kimbo’s lasting legacy, is how well his name value endured. This was proven when Bellator MMA signed Kimbo to a contract in 2015, making him the most talked about fighter in the sport once again.

His return to the sport after a five year absence, in the Bellator 138 main event against Ken Shamrock (the very same man he was supposed to fight that fateful night in 2008), was not without its share of controversy. People complained before the fight that neither man had any business headlining a major MMA card in 2015, that allowing them to do so was only doing damage to the sport and hurting its integrity in the eyes of casual and hardcore viewers.

And the fight itself had its share of controversy, as Kimbo worked his way out of a rear naked choke that looked completely locked in and should have ended the fight to knock Ken out only seconds later. All parties claim there was no fight fixing involved but one could certainly understand the logic behind saying so, especially since Bellator knew Kimbo’s value.

Kimbo may have lost some luster over the intervening years, but his star still shined bright enough to produce Bellator’s biggest TV rating in company history, averaging 1.6 millions viewers and peaking at 2.4 million for the main event. It’s a far cry from the Thompson fight on CBS but it says something when a man can vanish from the sport for half a decade and come back and still garner that much attention.

Kimbo actually managed to outdo himself in his next fight, a third round TKO over rival Dhaffir “Dada 5000” Harris, a fight that was even more controversial than his previous fight. For as little sense as it made for Kimbo to fight again, it made even less for Dada, accentuated by the fact that he almost died, going into cardiac arrest as the referee was waiving the fight off. Thankfully, he survived and recovered and, for all the criticism the MMA world threw at the contest, everyone still tuned in, giving Bellator 149 an average audience of 2 millions viewers, with 2.5 million watching the Kimbo-Dada fight.

The controversy didn’t end after the fight, as it was revealed that Kimbo failed a pre-fight drug test. The fight result was overturned to a no contest and, in a controversial move by the Texas Athletic Commission, Kimbo avoided suspension by paying a fine and having his license revoked in Texas. Of course, other state athletic commissions were likely to follow the revocation but that wasn’t going to stop Kimbo from fighting again, being booked for the main event of Bellator 158 on July 16 against the man he’s set records with, James Thompson.

Whether that fight made any sense is a moot point now as, last week, Kimbo suffered heart failure and died in a South Florida hospital, leaving this world in the same place where he made his name, where Kevin Ferguson became Kimbo Slice, a name that, after all these years, still meant something.

You always knew what you were getting with Kimbo and, whether you liked him or you hated him, you always tuned in to watch him. He was an enigmatic phenomenon that was hard to ignore no matter how hard you tried.

He was a man who, while not always conducting himself and his career in the most respectable of ways, always did his best to show respect to our sport. He may not have been a good fighter and his improvements over the years may have only been marginal at best but he always showed a willingness to learn and to better himself and, for that, I can offer the man nothing but respect.

Thank you, Kimbo. The man may fade away but the name will most certainly live on.

Evan Zivin has been writing for 411 MMA since May of 2013. Evan loves the sport, and likes to takes a lighthearted look at the world of MMA in his writing…usually.