Friday, May 24, 2013

Kimbo Slice Debuts on National Television

May 30, 2008 by  
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Kimbo Slice is on national television tomorrow!

The YouTube star who made his living doing a variety of fights on the street for thousand dollar payouts is now about to be center stage on a nationally televised MMA event with CBS.

While MMA has caught on with a variety of different niches, mainstream America is still a little taken aback by such events, which makes CBS’s marketing of Kimbo Slice’s first major event quite a risk.

Adding to their risk factor is the fact that many people don’t think Kimbo Slice is all that good. Despite a couple of decisive victories over veteran MMA opponents, many of the top tier MMA fighters are reluctant to buy into Kimbo’s hype. Many have gone as far to call him a hoax and a fighter that would never last long. Even hardcore UFC fans don’t think Kimbo has proven himself in the ring.

Of course, the thousands, if not millions, of people who watch his videos on YouTube would beg to differ. They see a once poverty-stricken man set out to destroy the world for treating him so badly for so long. They see a villain that they love to cheer for, and they are willing to pay many dollars to do just that.

Of course, ESPN paints a different picture of Kimbo Slice in one of their recent editions of ESPN the Magazine. In the article, which is pretty much a human interest story, Dan Le Batard paints a picture of a man who has gone through grief, and who is really only out to make a living for himself and his family.

I don’t know if I buy that a man who is so easily taken to professional fighting and who continually hurts (if not demolishes) opponent after opponent is someone who can be purely painted as a family man.

That said, he is a great fighter, and on Saturday, we’ll get to see just how great he is…

Or how great he isn’t…

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