Internet legend Kimbo Slice, in his first backyard fight against Big D!
Kevin Ferguson, better known as Kimbo Slice, is a Bahamian-born American boxer, mixed martial artist, and occasional actor.
He became famous for mutual combat street fights which were spread across the Internet, leading Rolling Stone to call him “The King of the Web Brawlers”.
Ferguson started working as a bouncer for a strip club until high school friend and current manager, Mike Imber, offered him a job as a limousine driver and bodyguard for RK Netmedia, better known as Reality Kings, a Miami-based pornography production/promotion company responsible for a number of popular adult subscription websites.
Ferguson still maintains close ties with Reality Kings who now accompany him, as his fight entourage, under the name Team Kimbo.
In 2002, he was charged for carrying a concealed weapon and in 2003, he began his career in unsanctioned mutual combat street fights. They were distributed through the Internet, mainly through the adult website Sublime Directory and YouTube.
In his first taped fight against a man named Big D, Ferguson left a large cut on his opponent’s right eye which led Internet fans to call him Slice, becoming the last name to his already popular childhood nickname, Kimbo. [wiki]
Legendary backyard brawler-turned-MMA ratings phenomenon Kimbo Slice is a peripheral player in the popular documentary Dawg Fight, which can be seen on Netflix.
The documentary chronicles the backyard Miami fight subculture from which Slice emerged, a scene which had been carried on by Dhafir Harris, better known as “Dada 5000,” after Slice went legit.
Early in the documentary, footage is shown of Harris in Slice’s dressing room the night of the latter’s first pro MMA bout, against boxer Ray Mercer. Later, when Harris makes his MMA debut on a small-time show in South Florida, the camera pans on Slice, who clearly wants no part of the film crew, in the audience.
Slice will face off with “Dada 5000” in the co-feature bout at Bellator 149 at Houston’s Toyota Center on February 19, a fight Slice considers the most intensely personal of his career.
Over the course of his career, Slice’s story evolved. He went out of his way to prove himself as a true MMA fighter – as was chronicled during his stint on The Ultimate Fighter and through his time spent at the elite American Top Team gym.
