Chuck Liddell is Not Impressed by Kimbo Slice

Ask Chuck Liddell about Kimbo Slice and he won't have too many nice things to say about the fighter with a 2-0 lifetime record.

"He's been built up because of the Internet", Liddell says, "and he hasn't done anything to deserve the praise that he has received."

Liddell goes on to point out that Kimbo simply beat up a bunch of guys on the street and hasn't done anything to garner any sort of recognition as a top MMA fighter. Liddell states that Kimbo has "no ground game". You can't argue too much with this statement - Kimbo has not shown whether or not he has any ground game in either of his two professional fights so far. He has knocked out his (lesser) opponents so quickly that he has never really been tested.

You can't really argue with Liddell's assertions about Kimbo Slice - so far Slice has beaten Tank Abbott and Bo Cantrell. Tank Abbott has been appalling bad as of late, and was only inserted into this fight because he was somewhat of a "name" fighter due to his time in the WWF. Abbott had a record of 9-13 entering this fight, and had lost seven of his last eight fights heading into the Kimbo Slice tilt. Not only that, but Abbott was 42 years old when the two fought, and clearly in the decline of his career. Abbott lasted 43 seconds against Slice.

Then you have Bo Cantrell, the fighter that Slice faced off against in his MMA debut. Slice defeated Bo Cantrell is just 19 seconds. Cantrell had a 10-10 record at the time, but had lost his last four fights in a row when he fought Slice. Here's the kicker - Cantrell had lost each of his last four fights in the first round, with one loss coming in just five seconds (against Dave Huckaba). How do you possibly get knocked out in five seconds?

If Kimbo wants any credibility, then he has to start fighting some tougher opponents.

There are rumors that Kimbo will be fighting James Thompson at the EliteXC event which will be shown on CBS at the end of May. This will be a slightly better test for Slice, as at least Thompson has somewhat of a ground fighting game. James "The Colossus" Thompson trains with Extreme Couture in Las Vegas and he possesses a background in wrestling, ju-jitsu and muay-thai. He is 14-8-0 in his career, with nine of his wins coming via knockout and four coming via submission.

Thompson's last two fights were both first round knockout losses. I'm sensing a trend here when it comes to potential Slice opponents. At the very least though, Thompson has some experience, having fought in PRIDE a number of times.

Kimbo Slice has an incredible amount of hype surrounding him at this point, and he needs to start stepping up the level of opponent that he faces in order to justify this hype. I'd love EliteXC to put Kimbo against someone like Ricco Rodriguez in his next match-up after the May event - someone with a potent ground game who has plenty of experience (Ricco has fought the likes of Randy Couture, Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira and Tim Sylvia in his career). Rodriguez actually defeated Randy Couture at UFC 39 in 2002.

Until then, Slice hasn't proven anything to anybody. The more that EliteXC promotes him as their biggest star, the more he'll have to endure comments from the likes of Chuck Liddell.

Source: Yahoo

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