But signs of progress doubled as reasons for self-consciousness and thin skin. State athletic commissions continued bringing MMA under its purview, fighters strutted to the ring in t-shirts with screen-printed logos for tire and prophylactic companies looking to get in on a growing a sport, the UFC was the darling of Spike TV, and rival promotions like Elite XC and the IFL had made their own inroads.
#Kimbo slice back yard fight professional
Kimbo Slice busting apart that one guy's eye is a cultural touchstone of the Internet circa 2004.īy the time Slice transformed into a bona fide professional MMA fighter in 2007, the sport around him had writhed and convulsed into a delicate place-one foot in the mainstream, one teetering off a cliff. But the biography mattered less than the clips. (Every time I hear about Slice getting his fame through YouTube, I want to push my glasses up the bridge of nose and point out that, actually, he was a phenomenon before YouTube existed.) Bits and pieces of a backstory emerged: once a football standout who fell on hard times, he now worked security for a porn company and fought for wads of cash. Over AOL Instant Messenger, friends who shared bloodlust copied and pasted links to grainy video clips of his handiwork. I first heard about Kimbo Slice in 2004 in the pages of the Boston Herald, when Boston cop and part-time MMA fighter Sean Gannon got in trouble for brawling with (and beating) Slice behind closed doors. He might have been a frustrating figure for idealists worried about the sanctity of sport, but even for purists, Kimbo Slice was must-see TV.
Kimbo Slice was equal parts Greek mythology, Horatio Alger story, and sheer charisma.
It was also the unexpected end of a life that would have read like fiction if we hadn't watched it with our own eyes: a bald, bearded, skull-capped mesomorph from the wilds of South Florida with bare fists to be feared, whose illicit exploits against opponents on patchy lawns and pavement became staples of the mid-2000s Internet, who leapt from fighting in front of pre-HD video cameras to fighting in front of some of the largest audiences ever to tune into a mixed martial arts fight.
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