Monday, June 2, 2008

Kimbo Slice = Goldberg



Aight so, this weekend Mixed Martial Arts aka Legalized Street Fighting hit the mainstream and got televised on network TV. CBS is looking to cash in on America's newest form of contained violence by televising Elite XC fights. Their first telecast was this past Saturday. But anyone thats been following this from day one knew that it was nothing more than a platform for their newest star, Kimbo Slice.

Who is Kimbo Slice you ask? Its kind of hard to explain. But to keep it brief. Kimbo was some cock diesel ass dude who built a name for himself fighting in backyards, warehouses and parking lots throughout Florida. The fights would get recorded and put onto YouTube.

I first saw dude about 2-3 years ago. I saw him fighting some sorry ass nigga who obviously didn't know what he was getting into.



After stumbling across that video I found more and unsurprisingly, he won all of them. Of course, all humans have that innate thirst to see people fight. But we want to see a good fight. The only time we get pleasure in seeing someone getting their ass kicked is if we don't like the person receiving it. You know, we kinda feel like we are kicking their ass vicariously. So eventually, I got bored with seeing dude fight, because it looked like he was just fighting niggas that might be able to hem you up at the club, but outside of that, couldn't really do any damage. Especially to him.







Evidently, the right people saw this and decided to capitalize. So now, Elite XC signed him and they are about to start marketing dude as an unbeatable star since people are tuning into MMA more than boxing nowadays. It started on Saturday with his defeat of James “Colossus” Thompson. Keep in mind Kimbo is by no means a professional fighter. He just started training professionally months ago. So beating a seasoned fighter like Thompson (or rather, winning after the ref stopped the fight) is in someways unbelievable. So, I can understand why core MMA fans feel disrespected with what they are calling a "fixed" fight. People are already expecting him to get laid out when he faces some stiff competition.

Seeing this reminded me of someone...

GOLDBERG!!!



To all of ya'll who used to watch WCW in the late 90's, ya'll know where I'm going with this.

When Goldberg hit the scene back in '97, he came out of nowhere, but was kicking everybody's ass. I remember Goldberg starting his career with some outrageous winning streak of like 150+ wins. At first he was running through mediocre competition, so WCW, sensing that fans were wising up, started putting Goldberg against bigger names to continue his "streak." In that streak dude won like every title and even beat Hollywood Hogan in convincing fashion. After seeing that, I was convinced that Goldberg was just a gimmick. They were presenting him as an indestructible force. They did this to have a gimmick to compete with WWF. To this day, I still don't know if Goldberg ever lost, I stopped watching wrestling after while.



But both of these scenarios remind me of each other. Two leagues drafting former football players to be their new cash cows. Both of them are bald with beards and tattoos. Neither one of them have any real fighting skills, just strength. Making the following meeting of the minds even more gimmicky.



I also find it interesting that finding footage of either one of these dudes is hard to find. Like I said, I still don't know if Goldberg ever lost, so I don't even know where to begin to look.

The lone tape of Kimbo actually losing is hard to find now. You can't even find this shit on Google. You'd actually have to know that it existed and know the name of the fighter that beat him to find it on YouTube. Lucky for you, I do.



Don't get me wrong, I'm not hoping that dude loses or gets hurt. After seeing his feature on ESPN and learning about his background, you want to see dude do his thing, as barbaric as it may be. I just don't want people to get lost in the hype.

1 comment:

D Frank said...

Goldberg was the greatest Jewish Hero a little kid could ask for in this fucked up world. Aaaaaand, his shit was sampled by Pastor Troy and Three 6 Mafia because he was just that gully.