Who is Kimbo Slice?

UFC fans, watch out! A fast-rising MMA star is making his way to superstardom as he joins the premier league of mixed martial arts, the UFC. The name is Kimbo Slice and this name is making raves as the next big thing in MMA. But who actually is the man behind the name Kimbo Slice?

Even before appearing on television, Kevin 'Kimbo Slice' Ferguson has already made his reputation as 'The King of Web Brawlers' through underground amateur street fighting videos made available mainly on a pornsite SublimeDirectory and YouTube. He got his name Slice when in one of his taped fights he inflicted a large cut on his opponent's right eye. Before becoming an Internet celebrity Kimbo used to work as a bouncer in a strip club and a limousine driver and bodyguard for a porn company.

After gaining popularity on the web, Kimbo was invited to fight professionally in some MMA organizations including EliteXC where he fought until it became defunct after filing bankruptcy in October 2008. EliteXC's downfall is attributed to the controversy made by the Kimbo Slice-Seth Petruzelli fight which gave Kimbo his first professional loss. In a post fight interview, Petruzelli said that the company wanted him to be tentative fighting Kimbo so as not to cause harm to the Internet star's popularity, but a few hours later he released a disclaimer stating that his statements were just misinterpreted.

After EliteXC's closing down Kimbo received an informal invitation from UFC President Dana White to join the league, but White said that if Kimbo wanted to belong to the UFC, he would have to earn it. And so the tenth installment of The Ultimate Fighter which featured only heavyweights was launched just to accommodate Kimbo. At Episode 3 of TUF10 Kimbo lost to Roy Nelson via TKO due to strikes in the second round therefore eliminating him in the running to become The Ultimate Fighter. This particular episode set a new record for the most watched episode of the entire TUF franchise, drawing 6.1 million viewers during its airdate and eclipsing previous records held by TUF10 season premiere and the historic first Ultimate Fighter finale which featured former UFC Light Heavyweight Champion Forrest Griffin and Stephan Bonnar.

In 2008 Kimbo made his acting debut appearing as the character Blude in the TV show Merry Christmas, Drake and Josh. A year later, he was featured in an advertisement by Norton Antivirus. This ad can be seen in web pages relative to Kimbo and viruses.

The future seems bright for Kimbo and it's no surprise if he appears in the undercard or the main card of TUF10 finale, and after that it is expected that he makes his debut in the main UFC events shortly after the end of the season.