Interesting piece on MMA Weekly today with various MMA figures coming down for or agains Kimbo representing the sport on CBS. We've all seen Dana White come out against, and B.J. Penn (whose brother J.D. works for EliteXC) come out for Kimbo. But this article has some new people piping up.
Not surprisingly, Dana's pal Sean Sherk jumps in to say "me too boss":
To be honest with you, I wasn't crazy about the idea.
I think if you're going to headline a main event, a mainstream thing like that, you should have the credentials to follow it. You know? I would have liked to have seen a more established fighter, somebody who maybe would represent the sport a little better, because if you're tuning into CBS for the first time and you catch this street fighter guy on television, I think that's going to give us a bad name. And I think it sets us back a couple of steps.
And Josh Barnett seizes another chance to disagree with Dana.
I'm a fan. I like him. I think he's good for the sport, and I think he's got potential and shows it in every fight. I think he trains hard and wants to expand his repertoire of techniques and strategies, everything. I think he's really taking the routes to becoming a full-on pro fighter.
He certainly has gameness, if anyone has seen his fights on Youtube. He's the kind of person to go out there, bare-knuckle against some totally unknown guy and be like, hey, let's scrap right here, right now. And that takes the right kind of mindset to get out there in front of everybody and fight.
I can understand where hardcore people would get upset because it could present the image that a street fighter could just walk right on in and beat top level MMA guys. Although, Tank (Abbott), I'm sure he wouldn't even disagree that his best years are behind him. Bo Cantrell was never a top fighter, and Ray Mercer was a boxer, but went out there, scrapped it up with him and got taken down. He ended up getting a front-choke of all things. That shows that he's thinking like an MMA guy, not just a street brawler or straight-up boxer.
I think he's sort of an exception when it comes to street fighters. I don't think he's the kind of guy you pick off of like Felony Fights, or you see tussling with some frat boys at a bar. This guy is big, powerful. He's clearly an athlete, and he's got the kind of training and experience that you just don't find in some street fighter. He beats up all the other street fighter guys pretty handily, and the one guy that beat him had a background in wrestling and MMA training... I don't think you can just casually treat it as if it's just some street fighter.
To me the question is, how long before B.J. and Dana fall out again? Seems like they're always at a tense point and B.J. has walked on the UFC before.
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