Kimbo Slice to fight in UFC, will appear on 12/5 event in Las Vegas
By Jim Murphy September 24th, 2009Wow, how things change. It wasn’t a year ago that Dana White was bashing Kimbo Slice saying that he’d never fight in the UFC, and callnig him a disgrace to MMA who had ‘been fighting in backyards’ just a few months ago. Then it was ‘Kimbo will have to win TUF to fight in the UFC’. Then it was ‘Kimbo will have to do well in TUF to fight in the UFC’. The new Zuffa party line is ‘Kimbo Slice will just have to be breathing to fight in the UFC’.
We all know how this works, however–if you’re on Dana’s payroll, you’re great. If you’re not, you’re a bum. And now that Kimbo is working for Zuffa, everything has changed and Kimbo is all of a sudden a serious fighter. The new party line is that Dana and the Fertitta brothers are so impressed with Kimbo that he’s going to fight in the UFC regardless. He’ll make his debut on the 12/5 UFC event in Las Vegas.
Kimbo may have improved as a fighter, and he may be working his ass off. What’s changed is that the money people are willing to pay to see Kimbo fight are going into the Zuffa coffers. Kimbo could have deteriorated as a fighter, and he’d still be fighting in the UFC for the simple reason that people are willing to pay to watch him fight. That’s the reason that Tito Ortiz is back in the UFC. Maybe we’ll eventually get a ‘Kimbo vs. Tito’ main event. Maybe Dana will sign John Cena away from the WWE and start a Kimbo vs. Cena vs. Lesnar feud for the UFC heavyweight title.
Personally, we have no gripe with Kimbo–he made himself a celebrity with his infamous street fighting videos and leveraged that into money and fame. Good for him. And we really don’t have a gripe with Dana White flip flopping like a freshly caught trout on a boat deck. That’s his job as a fight promoter–when Tim Sylvia was working for him, he was a great fighter. Now that he’s not, he’s a disgrace to the human race. Dana will say whatever is necessary to promote fights, and somehow has the ability to keep a straight face. He’ll say that a great fighter like Juan Manuel Marquez is a ‘nobody’, and that the Marquez/Mayweather fight was ‘boring’ but will gladly promote a fight like the inevitable Matt Hughes vs. Phil Baroni as PPV event worthy. Fedor is ‘overrated’ now that he’s working elsewhere, but Kimbo is not. None of this really bothers me, since Dana is a fight promoter and he’s just doing his job promoting fights.
What Dana White is not is a ’straight shooter’. It leaves me scratching my head how so many UFC fanboys and ‘clapping seals’ are under the impression that everything that comes out of Dana’s mouth is the gospel truth. Maybe among some people, making a statement with a half dozen f-bombs thrown in gives it more credibility. This is foolish. Dana White is a fight promoter, and is no more of a ’straight shooter’ than anyone else in the business. Dana often makes statements so outlandish as to make Don King sound like the Dahli Lama by comparison, and a segment of his audience accepts it as a fight sport version of a papal decree.
Dana White is not in our opinion a bad person–to the contrary, he’s always struck us as someone very interesting we’d like to hang with. He deserves a lot of the credit for building the UFC into a popular brand and were I doing the old ’start a promotion from scratch’ game Dana would probably be my first draft choice. It’s important to keep him and his job in perspective–he’s charge with promoting fights and making money for Zuffa and he’ll say anything no matter how outlandish or how significantly it contradicts what he said a week ago to facilitate that goal.
In any case, no opponent announced for Kimbo’s UFC debut. At last report, John Cena was still under his WWE contract.
UPDATE: The Dana talks about Kimbo’s UFC future with the LA Times:
September 24th, 2009 at 7:35 am
Wow, somebody’s a little jelous of Dana’s success…
September 24th, 2009 at 7:44 am
Excellent read, and right on the money as far as Dana White goes.
However I feel the majority of fans who watch the UFC are as you put it in the clapping seal group and are more fans of White than the actual fighters and would read this and call you a hater instead of actually thinking about it for a second.
September 24th, 2009 at 7:46 am
As I just noticed the comment above my first one is proof of where most UFC fans stand.
Eating up Dana’s BS and asking for more.
September 24th, 2009 at 7:48 am
It really has nothing to do with Dana’s success and personally I love to see people achieve success. But success doesn’t come without responsibility…do you not remember all of the sh*t that Dana talked about Kimbo back when he was in Elite XC? How welterweights would KO him? How he was generally a disgrace to the sport?
Personally, I think its a great move from a financial standpoint. People will spend money to see Kimbo fight. That’s been established. And I really have no illusions about fight promoters not being hypocrites when it comes to promoting fights. That’s nothing new.
My only gripe is the selective amnesia of the Zuffa fanboys who for whatever reason don’t get that Dana is just another fight promoter. He’s a very good one, but ethically he’s no better or no worse than Arum, King, or anyone else.
With one exception–Dana changes his tune and flip/flops more often than Bill Clinton at intern orientation. Don King is a BS artist and a flim flam man, but he’s consistent in his act. Ditto Arum. Dana’s promotional approach is borderlne schizophrenic and psychotic. Launching f-bomb laden tirades at any fighter who doesn’t fight for your promotion, or any promoter who dares to try and make a buck in the fight game may be entertaining but it isn’t good for the sport or ultimately the UFC’s business.
And if anyone is jealous of anyone’s success, Dana is jealous of the Arum’s, Golden Boys and Mayweather’s of the world. That’s why he launched his stupid personal attack on the Mayweather fight. Had he been cool about it , saying something like ‘they’ve got their fans, we’ve got our fans’ it wouldn’t have been a big issue. Instead, he insulted the fighters involved and the sport of boxing, and now again looks like a jackass when his event got trounced in the PPV buys.
Of course Dana will just pretend it never happened, his nuthuggers in the media will play along and Zuffa fanboys will be none the wiser…
September 24th, 2009 at 7:58 am
The funny thing is I have no gripe with Dana White either as a person or as a promoter. I actually find him entertaining, and admire his general ‘rags to riches’ story. And I can certainly see why he his the job he does–do you think the Fertittas ever have to worry about him stabbing them in the back? Dana is as loyal to them as a golden retriever, and that’s something you can’t put a price on.
And honestly, if he wants to bring in the entire WWE roster to have them fight Kimbo and a bunch of bikers in shoot fights that’s his prerogative. I’d definitely watch. His job is to make money for Zuffa. Kimbo Slice will definitely do that.
My job, however, is to consider his actions in a broader context of how it impacts the company and the sport. Starting feuds with the entire sport of boxing? That’s stupid. Not expecting people to notice the hypocrisy between his stand on Kimbo a year and a half ago, and the Kimbo love fest now that he’s a UFC fighter? Not particularly bright either. Just do a Google search on ‘Dana White Kimbo Slice’ and you can track that for yourself.
Dana is a great promoter. But he does have a tendency to contradict himself left and right, and to talk first and think later. Personally, I love the guy. I’m not always sure he’s great for the mainstream perception of the sport, nor am I always sure that he’s not hurting his own company with his antics. He definitely makes MMA a lot more entertaining, that’s for sure.
But that again comes back to my job as a writer/journalist or whatever. MMA is at a crossroads where it can become a mainstream sport, or it can play to the same 500,000 hardcores on every PPV. Honestly, I’m not sure which scenario is most desirable–there are upsides and downsides to both. Assuming, however, that the goal is to make the sport ‘mainstream’ as Dana himself has said on a number of occasions I have to question if his tactical approach of late is the best way to go about it.
September 24th, 2009 at 8:01 am
As far as Kimbo goes, I’ve more often than not been a Kimbo supporter. Look back through the posts concerning Kimbo here and at my old site, http://www.prophetfighting.com. That’s probably a better place to look since we covered the ‘early days’ of Kimbo-mania there.
September 24th, 2009 at 8:15 am
Here’s the last thing I’m going to say on the subject for the time being–I’ve got a big breakfast at Cafe Nell calling my name and I’m starving. First of all, thanks for all the comments–even if I don’t agree with you or you don’t agree with me I appreciate your input.
One of our goals with the editorial format of SavSci is some degree of balance. Dana White isn’t the Antichrist, but neither is he the infallible super hero that some people think he is. And, frankly, I find writers and websites who insist that Dana is the root of all evil as tiresome and intellectually deficient as I do his cheerleaders.
The only point I’m trying to make is for people to think for themselves. Don’t blindly believe everything I tell you, and don’t blindly believe everything that Zuffa sells you. This is a concept that people should apply in other matters as well, and not just buy in to what one person, political party, or company tells you.
Still, you gotta do better than come with insults like I’m a ‘hater’ or jealous of Dana’s success. If you disagree with what I say by all means question it. I’ll reply, and there’s nothing that I like better both in terms of myself and for the site than a lively debate.
One of the really fascinating things about the sport of MMA–and specifically our role in covering it–is that its still in its infancy. We have no clue how things will play out for the sport as a whole or for the UFC as a promotion. 20 years from now, the UFC could be as formidable as the NFL or as irrelevant as the defunct Major Indoor Soccer League. I sometimes fall victim to thinking that I have all the answers or that I know how things will work out–for anyone who achieves a certain level of expertise on a topic that’s natural. The reality is that no one knows how things will develop–I don’t, you don’t, Dana White doesn’t, Bob Arum doesn’t.
Much of the fun of covering MMA is watching the sport grow and evolve, and I strongly suggest to fans, media, promoters and everyone else involved to not get so fixated on the destination that they miss the wild ride to get there.
September 24th, 2009 at 10:48 am
If anyone is jealous of anyone, Dana should be jealous of Jim for his hair alone.