Is Kimbo Slice the real deal?

Short answer, at this point in time, no.

I'm sure you've heard of Kimbo Slice by now, but if you haven't, let me educate you a little bit. Slice rose to fame, thanks to youtube videos depicting him a street fighter. This was enough to get him noticed by former MMA promotion, Elite XC, and he was then swept into the world of mixed martial arts. Slice would be a feature attraction for Elite XC as they fed him fighters for him to just obliterate via KO. Unfortunately, that came to a screeching halt, when, on a night he was supposed to fight former UFC and WWE superstar Ken Shamrock, he was knocked out by former TUF alum, Seth Petruzelli. Soon afterwards, Elite XC folded and we didn't hear from Slice for quite sometime.

Until now. On season 10 of The Ultimate Fighter, one of the participants will be none other than Kimbo Slice. Watching a new ad for it on Spike this weekend got me to thinking about this situation. Dana White has famously said that Slice would not get into the UFC without going though TUF. And now the time has come. This season could easily be the highest rated, due to the fact that Slice is involved. With either Rashad or Rampage, two former UFC Light Heavyweight Champions as his coach, I think he can actually do well.

Since Spike has been advertising the crap out of TUF 10, I'm just going to assume that Slice is going to at least make it through his first fight. Remember, this season does not feature having to fight into the house. Some of you have probably heard the statement from Slice's former trainer, Bas Ruten, that he didn't take MMA seriously. I think that since Slice is going into TUF, he is actually taking MMA seriously now. Which brings me to the whole point of this column. I am predicting that Kimbo Slice wins TUF 10.

Some of you may be thinking that I'm off my rocker at this point, but look at it like this. Slice is a fighter who's main strength is his stand up. You stand with him and you run the risk of being knocked out. The key thing they need to work with him is establishing a ground game. Throw in some basic wrestling and jiu-jitsu and he could be potentially a threat in the heavyweight division. Hell, even throw in a very good takedown defense as well.

Now I'm not saying that if he were to win, that they just feed him to Brock automatically. Give him fights with actual contenders in the divison. Valesquez, Carwin, Nogueria, Mir, and even Couture. The heavyweight division has been lacking for a while in the UFC and with Brock as champ and maybe the inclusion of Kimbo, it could shake things up in the division.

So what I'm trying to say is, Kimbo at this point in time, isn't gonna shake things up, but putting him through TUF might make him a decent fighter capable of making it in the UFC.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on this as well, so drop me line and tell me how you think Kimbo is going to do on TUF. I might be made into a fool since this could be crazy Dana White's almighty plan to make Kimbo look like a bitch and if that happens, well I was wrong.