Kimbo Slice vs. Ken Shamrock went down this past Friday, and it was an exciting back and forth battle… for the two minutes and 22 seconds that it lasted. Immediately afterwards, people took to the internet to talk about the fight. Some thought it was awesome, others thought it was a farce. Then, there were those claiming it looked like a fix. Let’s take a look at all the theories pointing towards the fight having a less than legitimate outcome…
1. The “mouth to ear” position.
Near the start of the fight, Ken and Kimbo tie up in a clinch and remain in that position for 35 seconds with a total of two knees thrown for the entire time. Joe Rogan described it as “mouth to ear,” and pro wrestling fans have noted that this is a position used to talk out what happens next.
2. Ken didn’t unload on Kimbo from back control.
While Ken is better known for his submissions, he usually doesn’t hesitate to unload with strikes when he has the opportunity. Yet, when he took Kimbo down and had him flattened on his back, he didn’t throw a single punch. He went for the rear naked choke, which brings us to our next point…
3. Ken didn’t finish Kimbo with the rear naked choke when he had the chance.
Kimbo Slice wouldn’t be the first fighter to escape a rear naked choke in mixed martial arts history, but he certainly didn’t manage to because of any skill on his part. Shamrock is a submissions expert with decades of experience, yet his choke was white belt level. Instead of tucking his hand behind Kimbo’s head, he left it out for him to grab repeatedly. He practically waves it in front of Kimbo’s face at one point.
4. Ken Shamrock has a long history of suspect fights.
Ken started his professional fighting career in Pancrase, a Japanese organization that was a mix of pro wrestling and shoot fighting that’s well known for fixing the outcomes of fights. He’s been accused of taking dives before (most notably in his 2005 fight against Rich Franklin) and had a reputation leading up to this fight as a jobber who’ll tap the moment things turn against him. Only one of his fights in the past decade has gone past the first round.
5. Kimbo’s career is also riddled with questionable incidents.
Controversy has dogged Kimbo Slice since his first MMA fight when he knocked out Bo Cantrell with the first two punches he threw. Many also found huge faults in his fight with James Thompson, where the match was allowed to continue when Thompson trapped Kimbo on the ground against the fence and beat him mercilessly until the round ended. Later that fight, the ref stopped the fight in Kimbo’s favor with both fighters standing.
The most outrageous controversy of Kimbo’s career is from the last time he was set to face Ken Shamrock in 2008. Ken cut himself on the day of the fight and pulled out, leading the EliteXC promotion to replace him with undercard fighter Seth Petruzelli. After the fight, Petruzelli revealed that EliteXC promoters offered him more money to keep the fight standing up. “Standgate” destroyed EliteXC and showed the world what modern fight fixing in MMA looks like.
Sadly, there’s no smoking gun in this latest fight to prove or disprove what happened. Anything we could point to as proof could easily just be happenstance or the result of holding less than elite fighters up to the expected standards we’re used to seeing in the cage.
Kimbo Slice is 41 and has shot knees. Ken Shamrock is 51 and has spent the last 30 years destroying his body in martial arts and pro wrestling. The easy takedowns and reversals, the lack of strikes, and the terrible rear naked choke could be signs that this was a fix. But they just as easily could be signs that both fighters are shot, and this was the best they could do.