By James Slater: The boxing purists may not be overly thrilled over the way former street fighter and MMA star Kevin Ferguson, AKA Kimbo Slice, has come over to The Sweet Science, but the 37-year-old sure is fun to watch. Make that what little we’ve seen of Slice in the boxing ring so far has been fun to watch! Not to mention extremely violent.
Back in August, Slice made his debut in style; blitzing little-known cruiserweight James Wade in a little over ten-seconds. Next up for the shaven-headed, bearded slugger is an optimistically scheduled four-rounder against Tay Bledsoe in Nebraska. Fringe heavyweight contender Franklin Lawrence will also feature, against Raymond Ochieng, in an eight or ten-rounder (to be determined).
It will be Slice’s bout that generates the most interest, though.
30-year-old Bledsoe is also a natural cruiserweight and he has a modest-at-best ledger at 2-3(2). But the Nebraskan will mark a slight step up of sorts for Kimbo. And at least Bledsoe can hit a little bit. Promoter Gary Shaw, who says he expects big things from Slice, was never going to rush his latest attraction – and why should he? Slice is picking up decent money and decent crowds as he does his thing against journeymen/no-hopers.
Perhaps due to the way certain fans are bored of the Klitschko-dominated heavyweight scene, Slice is proving quite a hit – no-one will fall asleep with boredom when sat watching his escapades, put it that way. But there is an excellent chance Tay Bledsoe will be put to sleep this Saturday night; as tough and as game as he is.
Another You Tube highlight reel KO looks a distinct possibility with this, Slice’s second venture into the boxing ring (Slice KO1 Wade has drawn almost 800,000 views on You Tube).
Again, it may not be pretty watching Slice box, but it sure is fun. And for fans of big, spectacular, clean-out-of-the-ring knockouts, Slice delivers! It’s way too early to be able to tell how far Slice can go, or what will happen when he meets someone who can actually fight, but the curious and the just plain bored will continue tuning in so as to find out.
Will Bledsoe actually make it out of the opening round on Saturday? I strongly doubt it.
“Slice is just frightening and he is going to do much better in boxing than in MMA,” Shaw said. “Fans better not leave their seats during the action because somebody’s lights could go out at any time.”