By Aaron Klein: After watching former street fighter now Mixed Martial Arts star Kimbo Slice struggle to beat an average at best James Thompson last Saturday night in the EliteXC: Primetime Event in Newark, New Jersey, I can’t help but think that Slice is better off moving to boxing where he can utilize his extraordinary power in the heavyweight division. Slice, 34, original name Kevin Ferguson, is a relative newcomer to the sport of MMA after having made a name for himself with underground fights that have been shown widely on the Internet, making him a minor star.
With no grappling or martial arts experience to speak of, the 6’2″ 240 lb Slice recently moved over to MMA, where he’s now had three fights over exclusively soft opposition. As one would expect, Slice has won all three matches, two of them quite easily with 1st round TKOs in which Slice took out both opponents with head shots while they were on their feet. However, against Thompson, a fighter brought over from England last Saturday night, Slice’s lack of wrestling ability showed starkly as he was taken down to the mat repeatedly by Thompson. Even worse, Slice took a tremendous beating in the 2nd round, taking 23 elbows and 15 left hands to the head while trapped on his back, stuck between the cage. It was brutal, and perhaps only because of his name, the fight wasn’t stopped at that point.
If it were just that one point in the fight that Slice had problems, maybe I could ignore it as just something that happened, but the problem is he was having major issues staying on his feet for most of the first two rounds. While on the mat, he looked about as good as a person could without any skills what so ever. In other words, he looked like a fish out of water, flapping around and taking punishment. I imagine Slice will stick it out for awhile in the MMA, make some decent money with fights against mostly nobodies, before he steps it up against some good fighters and gets slapped down.
Slice doesn’t seem to have skills for the sport, and it doesn’t look as if he ever will. I believe he’ll be problems for any fighter in the sport if he can catch them with some big shots while on his feet, but the problem is that the better fighters will quickly take the fight to the mat, and either pound him out or put him in a submission hold. It won’t be long, believe me, before Slice is losing fights on a regular basis and largely forgot about by most people who previously held him in high esteem.
Perhaps the only way he can succeed at the sport is by having the rules changed, making it only a stand up fight. I suppose they could do it, though it wouldn’t technically be a MMA fight, but at least it would be something that would probably sell tickets and make money. I don’t think most fans particularly care for all that boring garbage anyway, since most of it is hard to see and there’s too much stalling going on when one fighter is laying on another like a beached whale.
Slice, however, is much better off moving to boxing, a sport in which he could use his tremendous power to his advantage. He may not have the height of some of the taller heavyweights in the division, like a Klitschko or a Tony Thompson, but Slice clearly punches harder than either of them. Perhaps best of all, he can take an excellent shot. That’s half the battle, for if he can walk through a few harmless jabs from Wladimir Klitschko or Thompson, Slice would very likely take out either of them in short order. It would be a much better option for him, because I see him taking more punishment in the future in the MMA sport, and next time he may not be so lucky if he fights a better opponent than last time out.
Personally, I think Slice’s too old to learn all the grappling techniques, which take years to learn, and much better of switching to boxing. This is the best time for Slice to do it, as most of the heavyweights have little skills to speak of, and the fighter considered to be the best in the division – Wladimir Klitschko – doesn’t have much of a chin, and can be taken out with a few hard shots from a fighter like Slice.