Coker: Kimbo vs. Shamrock could break record
Scott Coker: “Tito Ortiz set the benchmark with the Stephan Bonnar fight and we’d like to beat that record. That’s a milestone … “I think it could do it.”
Bellator president Scott Coker appeared recently on Ariel Helwani‘s The MMA Hour, and said that Tito Ortiz vs. Kimbo Slice could break records. Last years Tito Ortiz vs. Stephan Bonnar was biggest drawing fight in MMA on cable in 2014, with an average 1.8 million viewers. Coker aims to beat that.
“Tito Ortiz set the benchmark with the Bonnar fight and we’d like to beat that record,” said Coker as transcribed by Marc Raimondi for MMAFighting.com. “That’s a milestone.”
Shamrock is 51, Slice is 41. Neither has had an MMA fight since 2010. But Ken Shamrock is one of the pioneers of the sport and a former WWE star, and Kimbo Slice has a drawing power that far, far exceeds his MMA record. The bout came about when Shamrock called Coker and asked for it, after Bellator signed Slice. The pair had been scheduled to fight for EliteXC in 2008, but Shamrock dropped out with an injury, and was replaced with Seth Petruzelli. who knocked Kimbo out; Elite XC died shortly afterwards.
“He said, ‘I would love to fight that guy,'” said Coker. “‘I’ve been waiting.’ I could just tell it’s been wearing on him all these years.”
“Here we are back so many years later putting that fight together. There’s a circle of life here to this fight. And I’m excited to watch it. I’m telling you right now, there’s some heat between these guys. These guys do not like each other. I’ve been around a lot of fighters in my career. Usually they can talk the talk, they can have the little publicity scuffle or whatever. This is real. There was times where I was like these guys are gonna fight right now.”
Ken Shamrock and Kimbo Slice fight at Bellator 138 on Friday, live on Spike from the Scottrade Center, in St. Louis, Missouri.
Will a new record be broken?
“I think it could do it,” said Coker.