Tim Sylvia - Image: Ben Kevan

A fight with #1 heavyweight Fedor Emelianenko at Affliction’s first event earned Tim a phat 800,000 bucks but also an embarrassing 30 second loss. And now another nail has been put in the coffin of his career: this past weekend he lost an MMA fight to an Olympic gold medalist boxer. That wouldn’t be such a big deal, except this boxer won that medal around the same time the Berlin Wall fell. “Merciless” Ray Mercer is now 48 years old and a rotund 256 pounds. But that didn’t stop him from knocking Tim Sylvia out in 9 seconds.

Mercer had already been dismantled several times in kickboxing and MMA contests, most recently to Kimbo Slice, who choked him out in just over a minute. He wasn’t expected to have much of a chance, especially after the threat of criminal charges forced the bout to be changed from a boxing match to mixed martial arts fight at the last second. But win he did, and in spectacular fashion.

But wait! It gets worse! Tim Sylvia was set to fight on the upcoming Affliction card August 1st for another huge paycheck (we’ll talk about Affliction’s out of control salaries in another post), but was removed from the card last night due to medical concerns stemming from his defeat. To say this has been a bad week for Timmy would be an understatement. Not only has he damaged his reputation, but he’s cost himself one of the last big paychecks he’s liable to be making for a very long time.

Post from: EveryJoe

Tim Sylvia knocked out by 48 year old boxer

MMAFighting.com reports:

Kimbo Slice could be headed to Japan for "Dynamite!! 2008" on New Year’s Eve, possibly for a rematch against Seth Petruzelli.

Sharon Robb of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel confirmed Wednesday that "Dynamite!! 2008" is one of the options under consideration by Slice and his agent Mike Imber

So if this does happen, and the outcome is the same then everyone that has been saying that Kimbo Slice is NOT a real MMA fighter will have their lungs full of air, ready to spit out a big, fat "Told You So". Can you blame them though? Let’s look at some of the fighters he has stepped in to the ring with.

Kimbo Slice has had 4 fights in the Elite XC and one in Cage Fighting Fury Championship:

Kimbo’s first professional fight matched him up against Ray Mercer, a professional boxer in his first professional MMA fight, just like Slice. Ray Mercer was 46 years old at this point and as I said, this was his first professional fight. Slice actually won this fight by a guillotine choke.

His first Elite XC fight was with Bo Cantrell, a fighter that did have quite a few fights under his belt. The round started off with both fighters kind of playing it safe until Slice caught Cantrell with a strong right that looked like it stunned him and Cantrell dropped to the ground. Cantrell didn’t make much of an effort to defend himself and actually tapped out before taking too much more of a beating. A lot of people say that this match looked fixed and if you watch it, you could say the same thing. Slice’s first fight in Elite XC a set-up to draw a crowd and make him look bigger and badder than he actually is? Maybe. Perhaps Cantrell has never been hit that hard, who knows? Take a look…

Slice’s second fight was with a "Veteran" unorthodox MMA fighter "Tank" Abbott. Tank is and was, during this fight, far beyond his prime. No submission specialist here. Tank is a brawler and often overwhelms his opponents when he used to win. At the time that Kimbo fought Tank, Abbott had only won 3 of his last 10 fights before his bout with Slice. Was Abbott a credible opponent for Slice or just a "Big Name" to draw a crowd and money?

His third fight in Elite XC matched Kimbo Slice up against UK fighter James Thompson. Thompson had 23 professional fights under his belt. At the time he was matched up to fight Slice he had only won 4 of his last 10 fights. Are you starting to see the pattern here? However, this was probably the better of the matches because it lasted 3 rounds but still ended by ref stoppage 38 seconds in to the third.

His fourth and last fight in Elite XC was supposed to be against Ken Shamrock. Ken is not a dude that is in his prime anymore either, but if I was sure that it was a legit fight, I would say that Ken would definitely win this one. Unfortunately Ken "cut" himself during a warm up and had to be replaced by a lesser known fighter that was a contestant on the UFC’s Ultimate Fighter 1. Seth Petruzelli took the fight and under contract would be paid 35K just for fighting and another 15K to win. Kimbo earned 500K for fighting and would have won an additional 100K if he won. This fight only lasted 14 seconds with the underdog winning with a controversial knockout. Watch the fight and then read a little conspiracy theory below that.

So Ken Shamrock is not a cheap fighter. Makes you wonder what he was going to get paid had he fought. Given the financial state or ProElite at the time it kind of makes you wonder if they told Ken that they couldn’t pay him and he refused to fight. They ask another guy that’s much cheaper to pay because they still want to hold the fight. They fix the fight so the lesser paid fighter wins and they save another 100K. You see where I’m going here? ProElite just closed it’s doors and plan on filing for Bankruptcy. It all makes sense, but why would Kimbo agree to less money? Maybe they told him it was either 500k or nothing? It’s tough to say but it leaves you wondering, doesn’t it? None of these fighters had a good fight record in their last ten fights with the exception of Seth Pteruzelli, who had only LOST two of his last 10 fights. I understand that you have to fight your way to the top, but it just seems a little fishy that they kept matching Kimbo up against fighters out of their prime or with loss records higher than win records. And they were paying him an insane amount of money. It’s no wonder ProElite shut down.

Image used with permission from Newscom.com

Post from: EveryJoe

Slice And Petruzelli A Possible Rematch?