6/1/2023 0 Comments Kimbo slice back yardNot that I knew more, he knew more, it’s just at the time the amount of notoriety he had already was crazy. Anybody would come up to him and start chatting him up, and he’d chat you back, spend 15 to 20 minutes. He was just a gentleman – like a good dude.” “Especially when he started fighting, it wasn’t like today these social media outlets, when he was trying to get pictures of him doing something nice. In the past few years, Masvidal has rose to super stardom after beating Askren thanks to a flying knee within just five seconds – the fastest knockout in the the company’s history. He then cemented his status by capturing the ‘BMF’ title in 2019 so at least now ‘Ray’ shouldn’t feel so bad losing to a man who has turned out to be one of the toughest blokes on the planet.It was confirmed last night that Kevin Ferguson, popularly known as Kimbo Slice, had died. I had the pleasure of working with Kimbo Slice during my tenure as an event operations guy at the Ultimate Fighting Championships. Like anyone young, black and street savvy, I was deafened by the underground buzz of some bald bearded guy from Miami who was knocking fools out by the pound on YouTube. The tales swirled through Every Hood, USA but nothing at the time compared to the visuals. Raw, ethereal and unforgettably black, they appealed to everyones unconscious yearning for something dangerous. And Kimbo, with his uniqueness and penchant for blunt expedience in these backyard matches, captivated everyone from the urban jungles to back offices worldwide. So after hearing much derision on the road that Dana White had issued a public challenge to Ferguson to enter The Ultimate Fighter house and compete to earn a spot in the UFC as a contestant on Season 10 featuring Heavyweights, I was excited that I might actually meet this dude one day. I was already living out a lucid dream, co-owning an MMA promotion, Shine Fights, run by black men and it happened to be based in South Florida. We knew we didnt have enough juice to snag South Floridas biggest rising MMA prospect in Kimbo Slice. After all, a whole company, Elite XC, was created around him, so we attempted to sign his protg, Cuban street fighter Rene Level Martinez instead.Īlthough those talks fizzed, I remember that the meetings with Level revealed an aura around the new elevated breed of combat sports contestant, the street fighter, as something so intriguing, it was almost regality disguised as desperate pauperism. In the South Floridian Cuban ghetto of Hialeah, I attended backyard fights thrown by NYC expatriates and street legend Pistol Pete and rap juggernaut Fat Joe, both enamored, afraid and curious. My partner Devin Price and I engaged with Pistol to find out more about this world and the adherents of it. Guys who would fight in a backyard or on concrete to entertain the fans were rabid for blood and ready to disperse if the sound of approaching police sirens ever bleated. My family is from a housing project along the mouth of Harlems storied 125th Street corridor, and I saw street fights a plenty. But none of those guys carried it with the same optimism and grace.
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