Kimbo Slice, a famous mixed martial artist known for engaging in street fights, now has a documentary in his honor, thanks to the UFC. Even four years after his unfortunate death in 2016, Kimbo Slice has still made his mark in the mixed martial arts world.
Kimbo Slice, aka Kevin Ferguson, was born in Nassau, Bahamas but moved to and grew up in Cutler Ridge, Florida. Before his well-known street-fighting days, he studied criminal justice at the University of Miami on an athletic scholarship. After about a year and a half at the University of Miami, he transferred to Bethune-Cookman. He had quite the educational journey because half of his high school, Miami Palmetto High School, was destroyed by Hurricane Andrew in 1992 and he was living out of his car while his football career and season were unfortunately cut short.
Ferguson also had quite the work resume with his employment as a bodyguard for the pornography production company “Reality Kings” and as a limousine driver. His claim to fame as a street fighter didn’t arrive until 2003 when a friend of his posted an intense brawl from a Miami backyard against a bully who was terrorizing the neighborhood that eventually went viral. In 2006, Rolling Stone regarded him as “the undisputed online king of the underground bare-knuckle world” and is also known as the “king of web brawlers.” He had gained such an internet following to the point where he joined martial arts and became popular in the sport, beginning around 2007.
Kimbo Slice’s fighting skills had made an impression on the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) because in 2007 he made a debut fight against heavyweight boxer Ray Mercer. Slice became quite the triple threat from internet sensation to successful MMA fighter to reality TV star in The Ultimate Fighter, where the entirety of the 10th series was based around him. While Slice was dropped by the UFC in 2010, he eventually became an undefeated boxer until making his MMA return in 2015.
In the months leading up to Slice’s untimely death, he appeared in a fight with Dhafir “Dada 5000” Harris, a fellow Bahamian-born mixed martial artist, in Houston, Texas. He was scheduled to fight James Thomspon in July but was hospitalized in June. Slice was actually awaiting a heart transplant at the Cleveland Clinic around the time of his death. He had a history of suffering from high blood pressure and was even taking medication for it. Unfortunately, Kimbo Slice died at the age of 42 on June 6, 2016, from heart failure.
UFC has made a short documentary titled, “Fightlore: Slice of Life – Legend of Kimbo”, which honors the memory of Kevin “Kimbo Slice” Ferguson. The documentary is available on the website UFC Fight Pass, the subscription video streaming service, at different monthly or yearly fees.
Kimbo Slice has made his mark in the UFC and in the MMA world that all began with a backyard brawl. His death was a surreal moment for all those who were fans of this legend and his fruitful career. The death of a celebrity we admire but do not personally know is a different type of grief that may not be fully understood. If you want to relive a shocking celebrity that left a cannonball-sized hole in your heart, here is a documentary about the last days of Robin Williams.
