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Kimbo Slice is a JOKE – BOXING’S NEW BLACK EYE

By Kevin Nelson

Tomorrow in Miami, Oklahoma former street fighter turned mix martial artist turned boxer Kimbo Slice makes his boxing debut. Let me state that there is nothing wrong with Kimbo entering boxing, but the problem I have is that Allan Green is on the undercard and Kimbo Slice is in the main event. That’s right folks, a man making his boxing debut is the main event.

Let me state a few things. Kimbo Slice is an intriguing person. He is an underdog who was at one point homeless and now making money. The problem is Gary Shaw has not learned from his mistakes. Let’s review Shaw owned EliteXC and made Slice the main event attraction even though some fighters like Robbie Lawler and Nick Diaz had been fighting for a long time and paying their dues.

Slice is built up like the next great fighter only to be stopped in 14 seconds by a light heavyweight journeyman. From there the organization was in shambles. The issue I have is when you are building a sport like Mix Martial Arts or boxing you need to have credibility. How do you do that? By promoting a credible fighter and putting him in the main event. Tomorrow Allan Green should be in the main event because he is unlike Slice an actual boxer who has paid his dues in the great sport of boxing.

What bothers me more than anything else about people like Gary Shaw is not that they don’t learn from their mistakes but that they don’t care. If the place sells out than Shaw will gladly book more fights with Slice as the main attraction. But Gary has never been the type of person to learn from his past mistakes or to look at the big picture. What if Slice loses by first round knockout? What if other fighters in his stable begin to question his credibility as a promoter and leave him? Now this may seem a little extreme but when we can’t learn from our past mistakes it has a way of catching up with us. What was it that Albert Einstein once said the “Definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.”

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