KIMBO!

As of yesterday afternoon, this week was already a pretty outstanding week in the world of Mixed Martial Arts.

Strikeforce has a solid card on tap for Saturday (which I'll cover later this week) and the highly-anticipated Mike Thomas Brown versus Urijah Faber rematch goes down on Sunday night. Yes, I'll be breaking that one down too.

So just before I turned in for bed last night, I do a quick check of the web and find a monster announcement.

Kimbo Slice is going to be on Season 10 of The Ultimate Fighter.

Say what you will about the man born Kevin Ferguson, but this is an absolute stroke of genius for Dana White, Lorenzo Fertitta and the UFC.


While people currently like to use Kimbo as the example of everything that was wrong with EliteXC and call him out for getting dropped in fourteen seconds by Seth Petruzelli, remember that he was also the catalyst for a whole shitload of people turning on their television sets and paying attention to MMA for the first time in their lives.

For better or for worse, people were interested in this guy and his place on TUF gives an instant jolt of electricity to a show that was looking like it needed life support.

You think people aren't going to tune in each and every week to see how a guy who has been an international Internet sensation fairs in a house with a bunch of guys we've never heard of? That part alone will be interesting, not to mention waiting to see if he improves his game under the guidance of either Rampage or Rashad and if the contenders he's matched up with can get out of the way of those still very dangerous face-smashers he calls fists.

Now, I'll be the first to agree that the approach of building an organization up around an unproven like Kimbo was suicide for EliteXC; it be like the Yankees giving me millions to a guy who throws a perfect game in beer league ball. But that is what makes this move absolutely brilliant for the UFC.

Should Kimbo win the whole thing, they have an already well-known, thoroughly interesting heavyweight contender to throw into the mix right off the bat. If he gets dummied, all the shit-talking Dana did back in the day is justified, he can say, "Look, I gave the guy a shot and he's shit" and they still got a huge audience for another season of their flagship show.

As if this wasn't enough to spice up the week, White alluded to an earth-shaking announcement that is still to come that will change the UFC forever.

And to think - it's only Tuesday!