Despite Loss, Kimbo Slice Deserves Praise for Attitude

from brendan schaub:

I have a ton of respect for “Kimbo Slice,” and I am proud to call that guy a real mixed martial artist. His attitude after this loss only improved, and it wasn’t but a few hours after the loss that Kimbo was in Roy’s face asking him to TEACH him how to escape the move that “Big Country” used against him. Roy, like the leader he is, obliged. My respect meter is off the charts for both of these guys.

the continuing concept of Kimbo as a pawn of the EXC scam. Pawns don’t make hundreds of thousands of dollars per fight.

Sorry, I don’t buy it. He was a willing participant in what equates to a scam in this sport because he was benefiting from it as well.

Kimbo may be proving to be a “good guy” and ready to try and improve as an MMA fighter, but please stop fostering the concept of him as some sort of victim of EXC’s promotion of him.

I still hope to see Kimbo winning a fight in this season if he replaces Jones, a KO would be nice. come on Kimbo, bring it!

I like Kimbo, and he does have a good attitude about things, but he’s going to get eaten alive in the UFC. Even with Roy giving, IMO, a half-assed performance, he managed to beat Kimbo. A good attitude can get him somewhere, but it won’t make him successful unfortunately. Training with Bas was uselss when it came to the ground game because clearly he didn’t learn anything, and he’s too old now to really get it. I hope ATT can help improve his sprawl, because that’s the only chance he’s got. And even standing, I don’t think he, to borrow a phrase from Rampage, could bust a grape. He doesn’t hit hard enough to make his standup a true threat.

Yeah, he has a nice attitude. Yeah, he’s a PPV draw. Yeah, he’ll inevitably have a career in the UFC and hopefully win at least one fight against a scrub.

BUT THE GUY SUCKS AT MMA. There, I said it. That fight last night was embarassing, not just to him, but to the UFC and all of us fans watching. A fan guy sat on him in a crucifix (TWICE!) and Kimbo had no answer. He laid there. Just laid there. I saw no attempts to buck, create a scramble, or sweep. He laid there, helpless.

It’s all well and good for someone to have a good attitude in training, and call you “coach” and do the whole hand explodes thing after the fist bump. But if he doesn’t follow any of your advice in the actual fight—if he looks like exactly the same guy on the ground as he did a yer ago—then he’s hopeless.

After last night, I decided that Bas Rutten was exactly right about Kimbo.

I still love that they were both put in the cage and the cards fell where they did. IE: there was no careful editing, no questionable stoppages (though I was sort of surprised that they didn’t stop it at the end of rd1 when it was painfully obvious Kimbo was going nowhere).
I guess it’s not that surprising but seeing where Kimbo came from (EliteXC) it was nice to see him lose and not see the promoter screaming at the ref to “STAND THEM UP”.
I would have liked Kimbo to put on a better showing, it’s hard not to like him as a person (what little of that we get to see) but I think his limited performance likely hurt him further in the eyes of the more casual fan who tuned in the first few shows to see how well Kimbo does.

It’s hard not to like the guy, despite his lack of skills combined with his advanced age.

The UFC also deserves praise for letting the show run its natural course. Tons of people, including high profile members of the MMA media, made a lot of allegations about how the UFC would tell the coaches which matches to make to protect Kimbo or make sure that he didn’t fight until the last possible minute. Of course now that Kimbo fought early and fought against the worst possible match up, nobody is offering a mea culpa.

I wish they would make some kind of plush toy of him, he is just soo lovable.

should pioneer the belly smother submission.. I don’t see how Kimbo could breathe while underneath Roy last night, let alone take shot after shot to the head..

Kimbo has the mentality of a true student, and that makes him fun to watch train.. I am sure he will have a more impressive outing next time we see him.

Also I’m getting annoyed by all these age comments.. It’s just a number, give the guy a break.

This is the way I look at it, Kimbo is an old man, and based on the life he has said he has lead he won’t have the body to keep going into his 40’s like couture.

I knew he was going to lose this season, and I knew that Dana would do WHATEVER it took to get him right back in there, so people wont stop watching the show.

I am really pissed that Kimbo is going to be hand fed this 2nd chance because of his marketability, and not based on who is most deserving of the shot skill wise. The only people that lose because of that decision, is the viewers.

I want Kimbo to spend 5 hours a day with Alves doing leg kicks. The cage roll was nice, but the thing I loved most about his performance was that VERY nice kick. Too bad he didn’t throw more, he could’ve chopped down a fairly stationary Nelson on the feet.

and who ever thinks Roy didnt perform well….go and just…(you know the rest) i just cant stand how D.W. treats fighters when they prove him wrong. Roy fought the best fight out of all the fighters so far, and he beat up the guy that was suppose to be good….lol …really? in any case if you look at the end of the first round…Herb (the reff) looks like he is going to stop the fight, then he remembers that D.W. told him to help out Kimbo anyway possible…(at least that what it looked like)and he gives him another 10 sec. chance. if it was a real fight and Kimbo was getting hit for 30 seconds…even if they where slaps…THEY WERE UNANSWERED SHOTS…THATS it. D.W> sucks and the whole UCF hype is BS.

Just because he threw it doesn’t mean it was nice. How was it a nice leg kick? He telegraphed it from 3 miles away! Aside from that, give the guy some credit, enough with the “no ground skills” comments. We knew his skill limitations coming into the show. Besides, it was Roy Nelson on top of him, a guy who’s got grappling wins over the likes of Frank Mir and Brandon Vera. If Kimbo swept Nelson, like some of you guys seem to think he should’ve been able to, I’d really be scratching my fricken head. Nelson did his job last night, which was to get through to the next tier of the “tournament” without any scratches or injuries. Against a guy like Kimbo, it was a smart play.

This is what I noticed with all of his youtube videos too. Made me less than impressed with those fights, since anyone with a bit of punching technique would have won those fights much, much faster.

Im a fan, I dont think he brings any type of disrespect to the sport, and seems like a real cool guy.

Kimbo has probably made more than one MMA fan change his mind just by coming in and being humble, and it looks like he made some friends in the TUF house. There are people who are going to dislike him for personal reasons, their minds are made up, and they wont change.