Matt Lindland - Olympic Silver Medalist - First three opponents win percentage coming into the fight = 68% (22 combined fights)
Hidehiko Yoshida - Olympic Gold Medalist - First three opponents win percentage coming into the fight = 65% (64 combined fights)
Fedor Emelianenko - Recognized as one of the greatest MMA fighters ever - First three opponents win percentage coming into the fight = 66% (3 combined fights)
Kimbo Slice - Street Fighter - First three opponents win percentage coming into the fight = 52% (64 combined fights)
Kimbo is a guy with nothing even closely resembling the background of Lindland, Yoshida, or Fedor. Yet he has fought a comparable first three opponents. Obviously the win percentage of opponents is a little higher for the other three, but when you look at Lindland and Yoshida those numbers are skewed a bit due to a single fighter (Travis Fulton and Kiyoshi Tamura respectively) and with Fedor the fact that his opponents had a combined 3 fights throws that out the window. Let us not forget that Kimbo's next opponent is a guy who stopped Yoshida...brutally.
I guess what I'm getting at is...why is Kimbo being held to a higher standard than guys with deep Olympic level backgrounds? Is it strictly the fact that EXC is hyping him as a major star? Did the Japanese not have the same level of hype for Yoshida when he entered MMA? Is that more excusable because of his background?
The truth is that Kimbo is seeing levels of hype not before seen for a fighter so early in his career (with the possible exception of Brock Lesnar) simply because there has never been a time in the young life of this sport where this level of hype was attainable. When B.J. Penn burst on the scene in the UFC they were hyping him, but ESPN could have cared less about the sport...there was no cover story in one of the biggest sports magazines. The sport just wasn't there yet.
Now that mixed martial arts is a part of popular culture it is possible for a company to throw this kind of hype behind a fighter. Kimbo is a known personality to a large segment of fans and the response to the shows he has been a part of has been very positive. Elite XC is a business and as such they are putting hype behind the biggest name they have available. Business 101...if you have a commodity that people want...sell it.
So now we see Kimbo developing as a fighter, being brought along a path of increasing challenges and being the fighter the general public is most interested in watching. But the hate won't stop from a large segment of the hardcores because he is "being fed cans" while receiving main event hype. But it needs to be realized that you can't place this level of hype behind fighters like Jake Shields or Antonio Silva and achieve the level of success that Kimbo provides. Slice is the only person on the EXC roster who has the connection with the fans to where they are salivating over watching his next fight. You put him on top of the card and let fans see the other fighters on your roster. Hopefully one of them catches on.
One final point...in television you want your biggest star to go on last. I can promise you that were Kimbo to fight mid-show the ratings would reflect a significant percentage of viewers tuning out after his fight ends. This isn't pay-per-view where once you pay $45 for the event you're not tuning out until the broadcast ends. This is free TV where if you don't care...you watch something else. Kimbo getting the main event spot is the smartest possible decision Elite XC and CBS could make.