Catchweight (215 lb) bout: Kevin “Kimbo Slice” Ferguson defeated Houston Alexander via unanimous decision. (29-28, 29-28, 30-27).
Catchweight (215 lb) bout: Kevin “Kimbo Slice” Ferguson defeated Houston Alexander via unanimous decision. (29-28, 29-28, 30-27).
Complete Gong show. Both of these guys looked like scrubs. Kimbo has a white belt, Houston has never grappled before.
I'm not really sure why there's any confusion about why this was a catchweight fight. Houston is a light heavyweight fighter. It doesn't make sense for him to fight a heavyweight just because he CAN choose to not cut weight and technically speaking come in as a heavyweight. So in order to level the playing field for Houston's sake they compromise on a catchweight that means he won't be as drastically outsized and/or his opponent, while larger, will be hampered by a weight cut. As it was Kimbo still dwarfed Houston.
Its commendable that Houston came in with a game plan and stuck to it, but he didn't win any fans being AS tentative as he was. He could have thrown more kicks with both legs. But despite the lack of action, Houston landed more effective leg kicks in the first round than Shogun landed in any round against Machida (and he probably missed more legs kicks than Shogun landed as well). Houston also got the better of the two brief exchanges. Meanwhile Kimbo failed in not being able to check or counter the kick, AND not being able to cut off the cage at all. So props and the round go to Houston, 10-9
Kimbo definitely did better in the second round taking Houston down twice, once with a slam, and landing some decent ground and pound. I agree with how FightMetric scored the round, and only gave it to Kimbo 10-9.
The third round was very close. I could see a 10-10 score, but I gave it to Houston. He landed distinctly more strikes than Kimbo with his punches and kicks.
Kimbo winning means potentially more eyeballs on the UFC, so anyone looking forward to MMA mainstream movement should be pleased from that perspective. But we know that Kimbo will hit his ceiling pretty fast and eventually get cut. The UFC's job is to make sure that they suck every bit of fan interest from him so that once he does get cut, there is absolutely no interest left in Kimbo as a prospect.
R:2+ A:2 S:2 T:2
I'm not really sure why there's any confusion about why this was a catchweight fight. Houston is a light heavyweight fighter. It doesn't make sense for him to fight a heavyweight just because he CAN choose to not cut weight and technically speaking come in as a heavyweight. So in order to level the playing field for Houston's sake they compromise on a catchweight that means he won't be as drastically outsized and/or his opponent, while larger, will be hampered by a weight cut. As it was Kimbo still dwarfed Houston.
Its commendable that Houston came in with a game plan and stuck to it, but he didn't win any fans being AS tentative as he was. He could have thrown more kicks with both legs. But despite the lack of action, Houston landed more effective leg kicks in the first round than Shogun landed in any round against Machida (and he probably missed more legs kicks than Shogun landed as well). Houston also got the better of the two brief exchanges. Meanwhile Kimbo failed in not being able to check or counter the kick, AND not being able to cut off the cage at all. So props and the round go to Houston, 10-9
Kimbo definitely did better in the second round taking Houston down twice, once with a slam, and landing some decent ground and pound. I agree with how FightMetric scored the round, and only gave it to Kimbo 10-9.
The third round was very close. I could see a 10-10 score, but I gave it to Houston. He landed distinctly more strikes than Kimbo with his punches and kicks.
Kimbo winning means potentially more eyeballs on the UFC, so anyone looking forward to MMA mainstream movement should be pleased from that perspective. But we know that Kimbo will hit his ceiling pretty fast and eventually get cut. The UFC's job is to make sure that they suck every bit of fan interest from him so that once he does get cut, there is absolutely no interest left in Kimbo as a prospect.
R:2+ A:2 S:2 T:2