What Does EliteXC Do With "Kimbo Slice" Now?

The first showing of EliteXC "Saturday Night Fights" has now come and gone, with many MMA fans openly questioning the future direction of the promotion. It was not a good night for EliteXC, and many fans that I have spoken to were extremely underwhelmed, and even upset, by what they saw on Saturday night.

The major problem that EliteXC has is that they have built their entire promotion around one fighter: Kevin "Kimbo Slice" Ferguson. They have tried to build "Kimbo" up as a seemingly invincible fighter by putting him into fights against the likes of Bo Cantrell, David "Tank" Abbott and now James Thompson.

James "The Colossus" Thompson was supposed to be the next of the human tomato cans to get destroyed by "Kimbo". He was presumably going to sprint across the ring and get knocked out by "Kimbo" in less than a minute. In three of Thompson's last four fights prior to Saturday night, he was knocked out in the first round. He seemed to be a perfect opponent to further fuel the "Kimbo" hype machine - a fighter with an imposing figure and a glass jaw who would be destroyed by "Slice".

If you watched the EliteXC event on Saturday night, then you know that this was not the case. "Kimbo" got the stoppage in the third round after the ref called the fight due to a pretty nasty looking ear injury that Thompson had suffered earlier in the fight. "Kimbo" is still undefeated, but his performance showed off all of his weaknesses to the world.

Thompson had won the first two rounds of the fight. He clearly dominated the second round - Ferguson had no defense for what Thompson was throwing at him. Both fighters were clearly gassed, with Ferguson obviously banking on a quick victory. As the fight progressed, Ferguson looked more and more weary.

One judge actually scored the second round in favor of "Kimbo". Any fan could easily see that Thompson took this round. This fact, plus the surprise stoppage in the third round, have many fans screaming that the fight was fixed, and that there was no way in hell that Gary Shaw was prepared to have his number one star lose this fight.

"Kimbo" is clearly not in the top-tier of heavyweight MMA fighters in the world - not even close. He's a freak show who would lose to a top-tier heavyweight fighter in less than a minute.

So what does "EliteXC" do now? Do they keep putting "Slice" in matches with pushovers? Or do they give him a real opponent and risk having their number one star massacred on live TV?

EliteXC have built their entire promotion around one fighter, and it is going to blow up in their faces. What happens if "Kimbo Slice" doesn't fight on a "Saturday Night Fights" card? Will anyone, other than hardcore MMA fan, watch? I doubt it. Will people continue to watch if "Kimbo" gets beaten in his next fight?

The entire event was a top-to-bottom mess. You had Gina Carano missing weight for her fight. You had the dancing girls (is this a WWE event?). You had Phil Baroni getting destroyed in the first round of his fight against Joe Villasenor (wasn't Baroni just saying that he thinks he could beat Anderson "Spider" Silva?). You had Kevin "Kimbo Slice" Ferguson putting on a questionable performance and getting booed out of the ring. And worst of all, you have many fans openly questioning whether or not there was a fix in on the last fight.

I can't wait to hear what Dana White has to say about this mess. Thank goodness for Faber vs Pulver on Sunday.

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