No one ever said the Ultimate Fighting Championship didn’t know how to market itself, its sport and its fighters.
There may be no greater proof than the job it’s done with Kimbo Slice, the famed YouTube street fighter who crashed and burned under the weight of ridiculous hype that his last promotion and CBS television put on him. One year ago this week, it took 14 seconds to prove he wasn’t really the comparable figure to Tiger Woods that the network laughably claimed.
Kimbo lost again Wednesday on Spike TV’s “The Ultimate Fighter” reality show. In a match taped in June, he was smothered by Roy Nelson, a round mound of fighting experience who twice exploited Slice’s inexperience, laid him out in a crucifix position and dropped dozens of light but unanswered punches.
Referee Herb Dean, who allowed Kimbo to be saved by the bell at the end of the first round, called it early in the second.