Samoa - "Kimbo was never a solid up and comer, did he move beyond the backyard brawler we saw beating up hobos on youtube? YES. Was he a legit up and comer who was going to threaten the top 10 or better? No. He never showed anywhere near the skill or ability to go any further than he did."
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For a guy with no formal training (Wrestling, BJJ, Boxing, TMA, Etc) he did very well on a pretty solid first MMA fights. He fought Seth (vet), Roy Nelson, Houston Alexander, Tank Abbott, Matt Mitrione, James Thompson, and was competitive. That's damn good. Who else with as little training fought that kind of talent in their first 6-7 fights?
No formal training? He was training at FFA when he was doing his backyard stuff. He was training with Bas when he did his mma stuff.
He was competitive against Thompson (who was coming off of back to back ko losses), he was competitive against Tank (who was old, and was coming off of 3 straight losses), the Seth fight was a one sided 14 second beat down, the Houston fight was competitive with paint drying as neither did anything but circle in one of the worst fights of the modern era, the Mitrione fight was somewhat competitive until you know....he got retired by Matt. The Nelson fight was not competitive, unless you call getting taken down and punched in the head until the ref stops it "competitive".
You also forgot he only got to fight against that kind of talent because of his youtube hits, not because he was some monster of a fighter. Elite XC tried to build their organization around him, you see how that turned out.
No formal training prior to his MMA venture. Who else has started their MMA career against that type of comp?
