Kimbo Slice struggles to win
Photos: TOM CASINO/EliteXC - On a history-making evening which featured a lot of exciting, entertaining two-way action and a little bit of everything, including licks, kicks and controversy, unbeaten Kimbo Slice (3-0) of Perrine, Fla., scored a hard-fought third-round TKO over England’s James “Colossus” Thompson (16-9) in the main event of the inaugural “CBS EliteXC Saturday Night Fights” on the CBS Television Network.
The monumental event, the first-ever mixed martial arts card shown live in primetime on network television, was witnessed by 8,033, at the Prudential Center in Newark, N.J., and millions more on CBS. It was presented by Los Angeles-based ProElite, Inc.’s live fight division EliteXC.
“Kelly Kahl (Senior Executive Vice President, CBS Primetime) and everybody at CBS, Ken Hershman (Senior Vice President and General Manager, SHOWTIME Sports Programming) and everybody at SHOWTIME, the EliteXC fight team, everybody at the Prudential Center, the media and fans, I can’t thank them all enough.”
Said Doug DeLuca, Executive Chairman, ProElite, Inc. “All the athletes did the sport of mixed martial arts proud. The sport has a whole new audience after tonight.”
In other CBS fights, EliteXC middleweight champion “Ruthless” Robbie Lawler (15-4) of St. Louis, by way of Granite City, Ill., retained his belt when his match with Scott “Hands of Steel” Smith (15-4) of Sacramento, Calif., was declared a no contest. A good action fight with ferocious exchanges was stopped with 1:34 left in the third round after Smith was accidentally poked in the eye. Since a world title fight in New Jersey must go three full rounds to be official, it went into the books as a No Contest.
Gina Carano (6-0) of Las Vegas, Nev., defeated Kaitlin Young (4-2) of Circle Pines, Minn., by TKO at the end of the second round; Joey Villasenor (26-6) of Albuquerque, N.M., registered a 1:11, first-round TKO over Phil Baroni (10-10) of Long Island, N.Y., in a battle of 185-pounders; and hard-hitting Brett Rogers (7-0) of St. Paul, Minn., who called out Kimbo at the post-fight press conference, scored a 1:01, first-round TKO over Jon Murphy (4-3) of Minersville, Pa.
In fights streamed live and for free at ProElite.com: Chris “The Story” Liguori (9-7) of Red Bank, N.J., scored a second-round TKO over Jim Bova (3-1) of New Ringgold, Penn., Carlton Haselrig (2-0), of Johnstown, Penn., won by TKO when Carlos Moreno (5-3), of Elizabeth, N.J., failed to answer the bell for the second round; Matt Makowski (3-0) of Philadelphia, Pa. registered a second-round TKO over Nick “The Mad Monkey” Serra (8-3) of East Meadow, N.Y.; Wilson Reis (4-0) of Philadelphia submitted (rear-naked choke) Justin Robbins (12-4-1) of Granite City, Ill., at 4:06 of the opening round; and James “Binky” Jones (7-5) of Baltimore, Md., triumphed by submission (rear naked choke) over Calvin Kattar (2-1) of Methuen, Mass., at 4:49 of the first.
In preliminary bouts that were not streamed at ProElite.com, Zach Makovsky (4-1) of Philadelphia took a unanimous decision over Brazilian Andre “Gigetto” Soares (5-2) of Pinebrook, N.J., by the scores of 29-26 twice and 29-28; and Joe Sampieri (1-2) of Manhattan, N.Y. knocked out Mike Groves (0-2) of Philadelphia at 4:58 in the first round.
CBS announcer Gus Johnson handled play-by-play Saturday with legendary Frank Shamrock and Mauro Ranallo serving as analysts and Karyn Bryant as cageside reporter.
CBS ELITEXC SATURDAY NIGHT FIGHTS was produced by SHOWTIME Sports. The executive producer was David Dinkins, Jr. with Bob Dunphy directing.
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Posted June 1st, 2008 l 1,106 views
Comments
Anonymous:
Get real! The show was a disservice to MMA… Gary Shaw is the “Don King” of MMA. He has definitely mastered the art of hype and glitz.
posted June 2nd, 2008 at 11:55 pmdavid douglas:
Kimbo was totally exposed. He’s a “D” rated fighter fighting on an “A” level stage…I give credit to anyone that steps in the ring or cage,but, “don’t piss on my head and tell me it’s raining”.
posted June 3rd, 2008 at 12:05 amherman22:
the kimbo fight ended up being exactly what i expected, a flop. I mean what more could you expect from to third-rate(if that) fighters. I also suspected it to be staged, the entire fight kimbo had almost free-shots at thompsons massive head and sick ear, he was leaning in to kimbo’s hits everytime, thompson had a clear chance to end the fight on the ground but pussed out and without the ear kimbo probably would have lost (not that it matters..) and the CBS sat. night fights featured kimbo so why not fix the fight and get the ratings wanted and be able to use him as a publicity stunt yet again. WORST FIGHT EVER, very disappointed as an MMA fan and fighter alike.
posted June 3rd, 2008 at 1:28 amseven5suited:
You guys are ridiculous. This man Kimbo has only been training for under a year, and comes in and hangs tough with the likes of Thompson? (Don’t forget, Thompson once beat Dan Severn!) Will Kimbo ever be a great MMA fighter? NO. Will he always be entertaining and tough as nails, holding his own with bigger, better dudes for our entertainment? YES. Anyone who can step into the ring with heavyweight pros of ANY level with a only few months of training, and WIN, is a true fighter in my book.
After he busted Thompson’s cauliflower ear open, he landed a good 2 or 3 dead-square shots to the face, visibly dazing him. That plus the imminent loss of blood, and the fact that a dude like Kimbo would just keep targeting that ear, it wasn’t completely unreasonable that the ref stopped the fight.
posted June 3rd, 2008 at 11:01 am