I agree with this whole heartedly.
http://sports.yahoo.com/mma/news?slug=dw-slice052808&prov=yhoo&type=lgns
I tried to copy and paste the story but the new format put a stop to that.
Kimbo Slice, a one-time homeless man, one-time strip club bouncer, one-time backyard, back-alley brawler turned Internet sensation/big money mixed martial artist isn’t a problem. Only in America, right?
He’s said to be a great guy, a boot-strap success story who deserves everything coming to him. I’ve watched him maul “Adryan” a half dozen times alone. You have, or will, too.
Kimbo Slice being a street fighter, rather than a Brazilian jiu-jitsu or Muay Thai master, isn’t a problem either.
No, he isn’t the best and brightest in MMA. He’d probably get whipped in a second by the sport’s elite, as Tito Ortiz predicted. The beauty of the MMA, though, is you bring what you’ve got to the cage. Kimbo has those iron fists. Maybe it’s enough. Maybe it isn’t. We’d all like to find out. The day an old-school scrapper doesn’t have a place here will be a sad one.
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And CBS choosing to broadcast an MMA card in prime time Saturday, a historic moment for this once fledgling sport, isn’t a problem.
The sport has taken off in a way few others have – fueled purely by fan interest. It stands in stark contrast to all the network airtime spent on sports propped up on political correctness or obligation. MMA long ago deserved network attention.
Individually, nothing is wrong with a shooting star such as Kimbo Slice fighting on Saturday’s EliteXC card on CBS.
Together, plenty is. In fact, practically everything is.
EliteXC is a desperate promotion that’s hemorrhaging money. It’s willing to sell anything, even a false portrait of its sport, to succeed.
Kimbo is a guy with unexpected and most likely fleeting earning potential; understandably he’s willing to cash in even if it means tomato-can opponents and an image so unfortunately stereotypical.
CBS is so focused on quick television ratings, it will present a cheap trick, lowest common denominator show. This, rather than an introduction to a sport that if treated with respect and patience could grow into a powerful property.
Everyone is using. Everyone is getting used. In the end, what will be left from this experiment?
Will MMA on CBS just be a short-run, freak show discarded by all, left to return to its true roots and better promotions after the circus has left town?
If this is, indeed, the most important card in the history of the sport, wouldn’t it be nice if it actually had some of the best fighters and best representatives of mixed martial arts?
Anderson Silva, B.J. Penn and Georges St. Pierre display what MMA is all about. Not menacing scowls and WWE-like personas, but unreal athletic ability, disciplined training and tremendous intelligence from fighters as multi-skilled as they are fearless.
If one of them were on CBS, it would force America to realize what MMA really is. Kimbo, who taps into our primal instincts, plays to what many think the sport is. Let Kimbo cash every check he can – good for him – but he plays to MMA’s difficult-to-shake reputation as “human cockfighting,” as Sen. John McCain once branded it.
Those days are, or should be, done, of course. Even McCain gives MMA his approval now. That’s mostly because of the work of the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), far and away the major league of the sport.
CBS is about to show a minor league event with fancy production values. On the day the sport supposedly goes mainstream, it’s the big network – not the smaller committed outlets – that are playing to the sport’s worst instincts.
The fact the lowly Versus cable network will broadcast a far superior, double main event World Extreme Cagefighting card on Sunday, tells you what CBS thinks of the sport. Quality doesn’t matter. It doesn’t even have the best event of the weekend.
Here’s the troubling difference between rival organizations UFC and EliteXC.
UFC has run the sport understanding that its popularity could be greater than the sum of its parts. EliteXC, especially with its biggest star, appears to be eschewing investment in the long term.
Earlier this year the UFC welcomed former WWE and amateur wrestling star Brock Lesnar, who, in some ways, could be called its Kimbo. Lesnar, a former NCAA wrestling champ, is far more skilled, that isn’t the comparison here. The similarity is that Lesnar arrived with great fanfare and curiosity. Everyone wanted to see what he could really do.
The old way of thinking, the boxing way, would be to match him up against an overwhelmed opponent and cash in on some easy victories as he was brought along slowly.
UFC president Dana White, however, stuck to his league’s core belief that you either prove yourself or you go home. There are no padded records or kid glove scheduling in the UFC. If Lesnar was for real, he would have to prove it. If not, see ya. It’s what fight fans covet. It’s why the UFC has thrived.
In February, White matched Lesnar up against the kind of fighter that could beat him, Frank Mir, an experienced former heavy weight champion and submission expert. The fight was thrilling, Lesnar almost knocked out Mir until Mir’s superior skill earned him a submission.
Lesnar lost. His second fight, against dangerous Heath Herring in August, could leave him 0-2 in the UFC and facing an unsure future. That’s the deal with the UFC. It’s real. So real, White is willing to run one of his biggest stars right out of the game.
Kimbo hasn’t fought anyone nearly as good as Mir or Herring. Who knows if he ever will? EliteXC and CBS are running his career like a boxer, even if trumped up records and mismatch fights have severely damaged that sports’ popularity.
Based on that mentality, you can understand why White was willing to walk away from the CBS exposure that, done properly, would have shot his league into the stratosphere. Obviously, he didn’t feel it was going to be done properly.
Saturday’s card is not set up to show the best of mixed martial arts and introduce America to a sport it would likely embrace.
If CBS was trying to build serious interest in football, it wouldn’t trot out an unproven pro team against a doomed high school squad and call the ensuing blowout the best the game offers.
It’d get the New England Patriots and the New York Giants and let people see the real deal.
But neither the network nor EliteXC are treating the sport or Kimbo Slice as anything but disposable programming. And that’s the problem here.
So you're telling me a website that has a partnership with the UFC is bashing a competitor and it's big name star? Noooo
Did the UFC have the sports best interest in mind when they had Frank Mir vs. Brock Lesnar, who had 1 MMA fight, Co-main event a PPV event?
I'm sorry but this article is fucking stupid.
Why is that stupid? Because it's all true and Yahoo has the balls to say it? Kimbo is a joke and his thugish persona has no business in MMA. For gods sake he tried to have a porn site sponser him for his upcoming fight on CBS. This is the first show on National TV and already he is fucking shit up. Bad enough porn stars flock to MMA fighters but the sport certainly doesn't need any real connection or you can count on MMA going back to have venue's in parking lots.
That article is spot on.
The UFC didn't feed Lesnar abunch of cans when they easily could have and built up Lesnar the same way Elite XC is doing for Kimbo.
I like to watch Kimbo fight as much as the next guy, but he's so overhyped, through no fault of his own, that it's almost laughable.
This article has some interesting points. The UFC had the luxury of the Fertittas' bankroll to bleed money, whereas EXC may not. And while Kimbo may not be worthy of main event status, they need a "headliner."
Plus, the card has some good fights.
Smith has a puncher's chance
Lawler's exciting.
NYBA, enough said.
I'm excited to see Kaitlin Young.
Gina...yum
that article is spot on
I'm fine with Kimbo being on the card, i's being the last fight that's the problem. The belt should hold priority over all else. Hard to have a lot of respect for a league that doesn't respect itself. I would have said the same if Silva vs. Liddell got main event over GSP vs. Hughes. Smith Lawler will be the fight of the night and the one real fans want to see.
Wow the truth really upsets some people.
Great article.
Excellent story
"Waah waah, I'm Kevin Iole, only UFC fighters are real UFC fighters! Except Gilber Melendoz, he is a good UFC fighter too, see I am not biased!"
Clearly yahoo is racist and supports the white agenda...
Because the article is spot on.
"Waah waah, I'm Kevin Iole, only UFC fighters are real UFC fighters! Except Gilber Melendoz, he is a good UFC fighter too, see I am not biased!"
Ok, not quite Pirate. First of all, wrong writer and secondly, try bringing up and refuting specific points or arguments made in the story. Obviously it's ok not to agree with it.
I think the card is a good one with plenty of fights I'm excited to see and cover, including Kimbo's, but I do agree with the author's notion that for the reasons he mentioned and more, Elite XC and CBS are not representing the sport of MMA as well as they could
i'm sure the article holds truth, but it's coming from an extremely biased source. it's pretty common knowledge that Yahoo has a very strong partnership with the UFC, and that there's very heavy bias in their articles when regarding UFC and other promotions. You can see the bias in this article as well, and it only skims the real issue/problem with Kimbo being headlined in a primetime nationally televised fight.
So, with that in mind, what do you think the real motivation is behind this article?
Elite XC uses the same strategy as UFC. They headline what will sell. Since when did UFC become this benevolent force that puts the fans and fighters first?
There's a lot of truth in that article.
people want to see kimbo fight, it is a sanctioned mma, it is not human cockfighting, it is mma
elitexc has many good fighters, so what if they want to put kimbo on the first show, kimbo = equals ratings, its smart
you cant get mad at eliteXC for putting kimbo on cbs, the UFC could of had these spots, but they didnt do it
this is a noob card, but still a good card, all guys who throw down and they want fans to comeback and watch
next cards they will put on diaz, shields, shamrock, etc...
everyone just needs to relax
That was a really good article
BUT I'm still looking forward to the fights on Saturday
Who cares what a pencil neck geek writes in an article. Kimbo is still getting his bread and millions are still going to watch despite what some hack writer has to say
article writer = correct