Strikeforce, “Kimbo Slice” is waiting for your call.
Ferguson’s manager and longtime friend, Mike Imber, said his team is open to working with the California promotion, which just landed a three-year, 16-event-per-year deal with Showtime that could also include four live specials on CBS.
“I don’t see why not,” said Imber. “Kimbo wants to fight, so if that’s who got the contract, then that’s who we fight with.”
With double its usual event schedule to produce in the next year, there appears to be room for the ESPN magazine cover boy in the Strikeforce stable. However, exactly how Ferguson is promoted and marketed and what he’s paid could become sticking points in the very near future.
Ferguson received $175,000 for his 43-second knockout of David “Tank” Abbott at EliteXC “Street Certified” in February 2008. His pay jumped to $500,000 for his 14-second loss last October at the hands of Petruzelli, a light heavyweight who was pulled up from the undercard after Ken Shamrock was deemed medically ineligible to fight that same day.
Strikeforce will host its first event under the new agreement on April 11 at the HP Pavilion in San Jose, Calif., though Ferguson is not on deck to participate as of yet. The 35-year-old father of six has at least three fights remaining on what appears to be an exclusive contract, according to both sides.
Strikeforce CEO Scott Coker remained ambiguous with his immediate plans for Slice during an interview last Friday with the Sherdog Radio Network’s “Beatdown” show.
“Picture a guy that has some streetfighting capabilities that seems like he can punch pretty good, but put him in an MMA situation,” said Coker. “He’s not a journeyman fighter, he’s not a superstar in MMA –- he’s just learning. He got thrown into the spotlight at a high level where there’s a lot of pressure to perform, but he probably needed 10 to 12 fights under his belt before he took that leap.”
Coker, who’s promoted kickboxers since the mid 80s and has helmed some of the most lucrative MMA events stateside outside of the UFC, seemed less impressed with Ferguson’s handling by Pro Elite.
“I think that if you look back at the past, he could have been built up to have the fights that he needed to face the Seth Petruzellis of the world and be successful, but he wasn’t given the opportunity,” said Coker. “When I look at Kimbo, I don’t look at it as his fault. He was in a ‘no win’ situation.”
Ferguson’s manager Imber didn’t disagree with Coker’s assessment.
“It seems pretty accurate, I guess,” said Imber. “He definitely didn’t control what happened to him. He just went along with what was thrown at him. He wasn’t the one who said, ‘Hey, put me in the spotlight.’ They put him there and they got what they wanted.”
Ferguson’s drawing power has been unmatched. In addition to becoming an overnight cultural icon that kids dressed up as last Halloween, two of Slice’s four career bouts are among the top three most watched fights in MMA history -- his third-round victory over James Thompson at EliteXC “Primetime” on May 31 for CBS drew nearly 7.3 million viewers to take the top spot. But Ferguson’s October loss to Petruzelli -- which was buried under accusations that Petruzelli has been paid to keep the fight standing to coddle Slice –- brought detractors out of the woodwork.
Could Ferguson’s time in the spotlight be dwindling and can he still command the same “bread” he did with Pro Elite, a company that lost its shirt in the promotions game?
“He’s never fought for centerstage,” said Imber. “He wasn’t like, ‘Well, I’m not going to show up if I’m not the main attraction.’ He’s fine with that. Lowering the money is obviously not good, but, hey, let somebody call us. We’ll go from there. We can’t go off anything if nobody calls.”
Much like the impromptu backyard brawls all over southern Florida that made him an Internet icon, Imber said Ferguson is just waiting for a name, date, and place.
“Kimbo would fight tonight if the circumstances were right,” said Imber. “All I know is we’ve been waiting for a while and he’s definitely ready to fight, so whatever we need to do to get him fighting is what we want to do. Getting out of [the contract] would just mean more time not fighting.”