{"id":2022,"date":"2008-10-03T20:44:00","date_gmt":"2008-10-04T00:44:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/craigzablo.com\/?p=2022"},"modified":"2008-10-03T20:44:00","modified_gmt":"2008-10-04T00:44:00","slug":"end-of-an-era-or-two","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/?p=2022","title":{"rendered":"End of an Era or Two"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>Tomorrow night Ken Shamrock<\/span> steps into the octagon to face “Youtube” superstar Kimbo Slice<\/span><\/a>.<\/span> There’s a whole lot riding on the outcome of the match, and I’m not just talking about either of the fighters’ reputations. In fact, who wins won’t impact either of the combatants as much as the number of viewers who tune in to watch the fight who airs for free on CBS<\/span>.<\/p>\n

EliteXC<\/span> is the company promoting the event. They had a three fight agreement with CBS<\/span>. This is the third fight of the contract. Although the first card [which featured Kimbo<\/span>] was the most watched MMA <\/span>event ever, the second show tanked. So unless the fights tomorrow night bring the viewers to the tube, it’s over for EliteXC<\/span>. Without a network sponsor, word is the company will fold.<\/p>\n

Now, there’s no doubt that folks will tune in to watch Kimbo<\/span> fight. He’s the one MMA<\/span> fighter that everyone knows. Kimbo<\/span> is the big, tough, brawler who knocks people out. The trouble is, in reality, Kimbo<\/span> is over-rated. He hasn’t fought a single ranked fighter. In fact he’s yet to fight a fighter who’s on the way up. Look at the “name” fighters Kimbo<\/span> has fought. Ray Mercer<\/span> was a 46 year old<\/span> former boxer. Mercer<\/span> lost in the first round. Tank Abbott<\/span> was 46 years old<\/span>, had lost 5 of his last 6 fights<\/span> and had only fought once a year in that time. Abbott<\/span> also fell in the first round. Ken Shamrock<\/span> is 44 years old and<\/span> has lost 8 of his last 10 fights<\/span> including his last five. Shamrock’s<\/span> most recent victory was over 4 years ago.<\/p>\n

So, who will win?<\/p>\n

My guess is Kimbo<\/span>. If he does, it doesn’t really hurt Shamrock’s reputation<\/span>. The guy is already a Hall of Famer<\/span>. A Kimbo<\/span> win over Shamrock<\/span> would also add a bit more luster to Kimbo’s figher cred<\/span>, but mainly with folks who don’t really follow MMA<\/span>. Finally, a Kimbo<\/span> victory coupled with enough viewers could entice CBS<\/span> to extend their contract with EliteXC<\/span>.<\/p>\n

If Shamrock<\/span> wins, he could retire [hopefully] with a win that ended the era of Kimbo Slice<\/span>. Unfortunately for EliteXC<\/span>, it would probably also end their era as well<\/span>.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tomorrow night Ken Shamrock steps into the octagon to face “Youtube” superstar Kimbo Slice. There’s a whole lot riding on<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":912,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2022","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mma","comments-off"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2022","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/912"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2022"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2022\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2022"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2022"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2022"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}