Kimbo Slice Wins by Unanimous Decision Over Houston Alexander

Well, I saw it but I'm not sure what to think of it.

The UFC had it's live Ultimate Fighter finale today and as always, they had two hours of fights scheduled for us fans to enjoy.

There were several exciting moments and there were some boring moments, and then there were some extremely strange moments.

The "strange" moments came from the one match that every casual UFC fan was anticipating. The match pitted Kimbo Slice vs. Houston Alexander.

Given some of Kimbo's other showing where he was knocked out within sixteen seconds thus proving that he was just some street fighter who had absolutely no business in the UFC.

However, the internet has been a buzz about Kimbo for a long time, voting his YouTube video's up, countless blogs discussing how tough he is, and so on.

Well the owner of the UFC, Dana White, was not impressed by Kimbo Slice in the least and he really didn't want him in the UFC. Yet, the fans made themselves heard and Dana White finally said that the only way that Kimbo Slice was going to fight in the UFC is if he went through "The Ultimate Fighter"...

"The Ultimate Fighter" is a reality show/competition where aspiring mixed martial arts fighter compete week in and week out to eventually win a contract with the Ultimate Fighting Championship.

Now the interesting thing is that Kimbo was eliminated from the competition very early on in the season yet since he was the biggest ratings draw on the show, producers kept teasing that Kimbo would be back in some capacity.

We also learned that Kimbo has arthritis in his left knee and that age is starting to catch up with him, so it didn't seem likely that he was going to be involved in any matches but perhaps he would be guest time keeper or something like that.

We also learned that Kimbo, after being eliminated from the show, was training actual MMA style fighting as he had only ever been a street fighter who had really good punching ability. Though, as anyone who knows anything about the UFC, punching ability is great to have but if you don't have other skills like wrestling, Judo and a knowledge of submission holds, you really have nothing to contribute to the UFC. In essence, a fighter who can only punch is going to lose every match very quickly.

Let us fast forward to tonight, the card for the "Ultimate Fighter" finale had been announced for some time and to everyone's surprised Kimbo Slice was booked to fight Houston Alexander.

Alexander was touted as the perfect opponent for Kimbo as his proffered manner of fighting was standing up and trading punches. Which, as we've already discussed, is the exact same thing that Kimbo is known for.

So finally it was time for the bout and both fighter entered the octagon and prepared for "war" with each other. The crowd didn't know what to expect but they were certainly pumped up.

The match was started and we were ready to see something, we didn't know what, but we were all ready to see something we hadn't seen before.

Was Kimbo going to be knocked out in the first few seconds of the bout? Was Alexander underestimating just how much Kimbo had learned over the past several months of training in the MMA style of fighting? What was going to happen?

Round one, Houston Alexander thought it was a good idea to run laps around the perimeter of the octagon, occasional kicking somewhat lazily at Kimbo's leg, then he would return to his jogging around the octagon. Kimbo was towards the middle of the mat and was trying to engage Alexander and disturb his jogging routine.

Except for one attempt that resulted in some punches being traded. Round one ended without any actual fighting having taken place and we cut to commercial.

Round two started very much the same way that round one did, Alexander was once again jogging around the octagon though this time Kimbo was doing more to attempt to cut him off. Kimbo wasn't sure how to counteract Alexanders jogging and then all of a sudden it happened; the two fighters actually started fighting with Kimbo landing the majority of the punches.

Then, the most amazing thing happened, Kimbo was able to score a couple of big slams on Alexander and got into the full mount on several occasions and completely dominated round two. Though his inexperience showed, it was also obvious that Kimbo had learned quite a bit in his weeks of training and he was demonstrating some clumsy but effective MMA attacks.

Round two ended with Kimbo having easily winning that round. We cut to commercial and wait for the final round which would decide the winner.

The fans were chanting Kimbo's name, in fact the fans tore the roof off with their supportive "Kimbo" chant.

Round three started, Alexander again tried to jog but this was not going to happen and the two fighters went at it again. Kimbo went down to the mat one time when Alexander delivered a relatively powerful kick to Kimbo's knee. Kimbo didn't miss a beat though as he immediately grabbed at Alexanders leg and took him down to the mat yet again.

To make a long story short, round three was not unlike round two and it was fairly obvious that this round was also won by Kimbo.

Unfortunately the fight went the distance and soon enough round three had ended without a knockout or a submission. It would have to be decided by the judges.

With what had to be the biggest surprise in UFC history, the man that Dana White said would never fight in the UFC, was declared the winner unanimously by all three judges.

I enjoyed the fight though I'll be the first to say that if Kimbo Slice wants to continue fighting in the UFC then he's got a lot of work ahead of him. He has to improve his conditioning and endurance as he was sucking wind through most of the fight. He also has to continue training in multiple disciplines and improve his skills in take downs, submissions and choke holds.

Was this a good match? That's a relative question as it was surreal but if you were cheering for Kimbo Slice then it was a pretty darn good fight.

by: Rob Korczak