![]() ![]() It was there he picked up the name “Slice” when during his first video fight he sliced open the eye of his opponent. ![]() Massively muscular and intimidating in appearance, Slice worked as a bouncer and bodyguard/driver before gaining fame as a backyard fighter on internet videos. Slice, born Kevin Fergusonin 1974 in The Bahamas grew up in Florida where he starred as a high school football player, good enough to get scholarship offers and ultimately a tryout with the Miami Dolphins. Slice was taken to his local hospital earlier today where he expired a short time later of an undisclosed condition. But you’ve got to respect that he’s gotten to this point by being the exact same dude he was when he was fighting in backyards for no pay.įor more on UFC 239, check out the UFC results.Internet backyard fighting sensation Kimbo Slice has been reported to have died at age 42 on June 6, 2016. You don’t have to like Masvidal or approve of the way he handled himself after the knockout Saturday night. And in this case, Masvidal seems, at worst, one win away from a title shot. But sometimes sticking by your principles does, in fact, pay off in the long run. There’s no guarantee in this sport that a body of work, which speaks for itself, will be rewarded, not when there are all manner of gimmicks one can employ to short-cut to success. If you want other (expletive), guys going to press conferences on time, you know who to call.” “If you want sheer violence, you know who to call. “I think my body of work speaks for itself,” Masvidal said. If someone wants to speak ill of you, settle it on fight night, and then, if you do your job, it’s time to talk smack back. But then that, too, hearkens back to what he learned fighting the likes of Ray in South Florida backyards: Come correct. It certainly wasn’t the most sportsmanlike thing one could do. Masvidal’s post-fight mockery of Askren earned him scorn in some corners. Twitter reacts to Jorge Masvidal's record-setting KO of Ben Askren at UFC 239 Askren embraces the media game as strongly as Masvidal avoids it, and he used his platform to run down Masvidal at any and every opportunity. Which brings us back to Saturday night’s fight with Askren. Masvidal wasn’t here to make friends, and he also didn’t start beef with anyone who didn’t start with him first. It was also true that basically the only thing Masvidal was interested in was fighting, which meant he was the type of fighter the hardcores appreciated, but not the type who generated TV ratings or page views or pay-per-view buys or any of the rest of the assorted nonsense that feeds the hype machine. ![]() ![]() That was true whether he was fighting in BodogFights, or the early days of Bellator or Strikeforce, and all the way through the UFC. Until recently, Masvidal wasn’t a star, but rather the welterweight was the sort of guy who, when you settle into your seats at the arena and look at the evening’s lineup, you elbow your buddy and say, “Oh hey, Jorge Masvidal is on the card tonight. It’s how he’s conducted himself throughout a career in which he’s been a constant presence, a solid name on the card. And it should help explain the no-nonsense way in which he handled himself during one of the most memorable moments in UFC history, his record-setting five-second knockout of Ben Askren with a hellacious flying knee at UFC 239 in Las Vegas.īen Askren OK after knockout, reacts to Jorge Masvidal loss at UFC 239 That’s how Masvidal came up in the fight game, before he went what most of us consider legit. They even ended up teammates at American Top Team (Masvidal talked about it to MMA Junkie at length after Slice died in 2016). Then they had a rematch, and he did it again, even though Kimbo was the ref and his team was filming the fight.Īfter that? Masvidal and Kimbo were cool. The first the world saw of the fighter now known as “Gamebred” came to light back in the primitive days of YouTube, where he took on a significantly larger foe known only as Ray at an undisclosed, outdoor location, a man who happened to be Slice’s protege. It’s worth remembering, here on the day after the biggest victory of his career, that Jorge Masvidal got his start on the same South Florida backyard bareknuckle circuit that produced the late, legendary Kimbo Slice. ![]()
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