Kimbo Slice versus Dada 5000: The Rise of the YouTube Brawlers

Artwork by Grimoire

When fight historians look back forty or fifty years from now, I wonder how they will remember Kimbo Slice. He could well be seen as a sideshow attraction who fought hand picked opponents and fell short at every real test like Primo Carnera. But there is a decent chance that regardless of his performances in the cage, he could be remembered as one of the great social climbers in fighting history. A rags-to-riches story in line with the greats like Jack Johnson and Jack Dempsey—perhaps even greater.

Slice, born Kevin Ferguson, was a football talent whose career never hit the big time and who wound up working as a limousine driver and bodyguard for the owners of the Reality Kings pornography empire. Taking bareknuckle fights, which were filmed and distributed online, Slice became an internet sensation. Any two hundred and thirty pound man is going to be scary in a street fight, but Slice had the look of a killer and could actually box something better than the men he was meeting. What's more, he could take a shot almost as well as he could give one. The cry went up: get this man into MMA.

Fighting has always been an unparalleled tool for social mobility. Ever since men could strip to their britches and make a quick buck by beating or getting beaten, the competitive aspect of the 'gentlemanly art of self defense' has been the business of the poor. It was either the tool, or the crutch, of those who needed it most. Muhammad Ali once quipped that boxing is a bunch of rich white men paying two poor black men to beat each other senseless, yet it was Ali who became the biggest star in boxing's history and could negotiate the multi-million dollar purses. But it is a knife edge and no one can know whether a fighter will fall on the side of wealth and success, or simply become another man elevated momentarily and sent tumbling back to earth with only scrambled brains and slurred speech to show for it.

Of course, it is not just poor black communities which produce fighters as Ali asserted but poor white communities, poor Latin American communities, poor English, Irish and Russian communities—the rougher parts of town have always produced their country's best fighters. The reasons being firstly the hunger of the impoverished fighter for glory, self-betterment, and in some cases even for food. Jack Dempsey famously said that when he was taking his first matches in mining towns he was usually so famished that he would have happily let someone hit him in the head with a sledgehammer for a crust of bread, the fact that it was a man wearing gloves trying to hit him and that he was allowed to fight back seemed almost a blessing. The second reason is that fighters coming out of poorer areas who have success have the unconditional backing of those around them. The success of the local elevates the spirit of a community like nothing else. Remember the stories of Brockton citizens literally betting their houses on the local hero, Rocky Marciano, in his world heavyweight title challenge. Fighting is an individual sport but every fighter is a product of his surroundings and the community knows that.

And so in the run up to Kimbo Slice versus Dada 5000 everyone is talking about 'the streets' and Dada 5000 is accusing Slice of being 'a seven-figure [expletive] that moved in with the white folks'. How much of this fight is a grudge match and how much of it is Bellator desperately trying to find an opponent who Slice can be relied on to beat? Especially after struggling so much with an aged Ken Shamrock? It remains to be seen but the storyline created around Kimbo Slice and the appeal it has had with the public at large is something incredible all of its own.

The Sliceman Cometh

In 2007 Slice began his MMA career. Fighting exclusively no one of note, Slice quickly became a headliner for EliteXC. His bout against Tank Abbott was especially sad:

Kimbo Slice's bout with James Thompson—a fighter known for his numerous knockout losses and obviously brought in to lose to Slice—drew seven point three million viewers, becoming the most viewed MMA fight in history. But even in the Thompson fight the wheels were falling off the wagon. Slice failed to do much to the shakiest chin in the division with his best shots and was repeatedly taken down and dinged up with elbows, unable to defend himself. It was by the grace of the referee that Slice was able to win the bout.

In Kimbo's next fight he was scheduled to fight Ken Shamrock, but Shamrock withdrew at the last minute. Scrambling to find an opponent, EliteXC brought light heavyweight Seth Petruzelli up from lower down the card and reportedly made it very clear that he was to stay standing with Slice. Slice charged in on Petruzelli, Petruzelli threw out a teep to keep Slice at bay and Slice ran onto a short, one legged jab along the fence which put him on the floor. Slice was quickly pounded out and the loss essentially killed EliteXC.

Yet the Slice rub continues to take effect. After a less than spectacular performance on the UFC's never ending The Ultimate Fighter—in which Slice lost to Roy Nelson and gained the episode six million viewers—Slice met Houston Alexander at the TUF Finale. Through Slice's presence the card drew 5.2 million viewers, peaking during Slice's appearance in one of the worst UFC fights of all time. Even Slice's most recent fight, an appalling one round brawl with fifty year old Ken Shamrock in which Slice was back mounted, flattened out and ready to be choked, two and a half million viewers.

And so this weekend Kimbo Slice meets fellow Florida street brawler, Dada 5000. Dada 5000 is the star of the bleak and depressing documentary Dawg Fight which provides insight into his work as a promoter of back yard fights. In it he comes across as a thoughtful guy who genuinely wants to elevate his community and believes he can somehow do that by promoting unsanctioned bare knuckle bouts. Certainly for every Kimbo Slice or Dada 5000 there has been a legitimate talent who has fought a couple of bareknuckle, unsanctioned scraps like the brilliant Jorge Masvidal.

Dada is another huge man who swings his fists very hard, but whom it is very hard to find footage of. His two MMA matches have been appalling beyond all expectation. Amid his wide swings he eats straight blows and flies off balance and he's come damn close to being knocked out on the feet, the one area he should know what he's doing. Obviously like Slice he is a fish on the ground, it took the referee standing him up from the bottom of mount (shady as hell but this is regional MMA, after all) to win this fight.

The reason that the Kimbo Slice story and to a lesser extent Dada 5000s own have attracted so much attention is that both are perceived to have come from the streets and worked their way up. It's the Rocky story that everyone loves. The problem is that where most fighters work their way up on the undercards of small shows against opponents appropriate to their skill level and the challenges grow with the record, Slice was main eventing cards from his second fight. It's that underdog tale without any of the work or graft that makes that story so special. It's a carefully contrived attempt at a Joe Frazier or a Roberto Duran who battled his way out of poverty and up from the streets, the problem is that those fighters didn't get the hand holding and special treatment of Slice.

Now we are well into the twilight of the Kimbo Slice phenomenon. Fans could pretend that he just had to 'round out his game' all the way up to his bout with Matt Mitrione, but it has become abundantly clear that the forty year old Slice hasn't got time to do that. He went to boxing for a while, struggled with some of his hand picked opponents, then Bellator offered him a heap of money to come back to MMA. His last fight drew two and a half million viewers, which is incredible by Bellator standards but pretty bad by the standard set in Slice's 'prime'.

But here's the question: does the fact that Kimbo Slice's rise to main event caliber fighter was made by the promoters and not through his own ability change anything?

He's still a story of a fighter coming from very little to becoming at one point the biggest draw in MMA. Ultimately he is doing his job, drawing eyes to whichever promotion is paying him. He became one of the single most valuable assets in a sport which he isn't very good at. We might wish it wasn't so, and that he wasn't stealing the spotlight from the heaps of brilliant fighters lower down on Bellator cards, but we certainly can't begrudge him. Sure he's fighting non-contests and looking awful, but he's doing it on the biggest stage in the world for hundreds of thousands of dollars. I'd dare to say that Kevin Ferguson's MMA career—as a career—has been one of the most successful in the history of the game and that he's done pretty darn well for himself.