Santos A. Perez of the Miami Herald recently wrote a column about Kimbo Slice potentially moving over to boxing after his questionable perfomance on Saturday night's EliteXC MMA card in New Jersey:

Traditional MMA enthusiasts, who scoff at Slice's rapid rise to lucrative matches because of his limited sanctioned fight history, were likely the first to yell, ''I told you so,'' when Slice remained pinned to the floor and absorbed repeated blows in the second round against James Thompson.

But these enthusiasts cannot deny the potency of Slice's hands.

Can't they? Not even possibly? Not even for a second? Maybe they might not think Slice is all the punch he was supposed to be after Saturday's fight?

Again, I do not claim to be an MMA expert. I guess I could describe myself as an MMA "enthusiast," and perhaps a "traditional" one at that. But what I saw on Saturday was Kimbo repeatedly landing shots on the glass-jawed Thompson, who did not go down. Sure he was wobbled -- he should've been. He was supposed to be. He was a cherry-picked opponent for Kimbo to knock out. Didn't happen. Even the TKO was questionable.

Although he looked vulnerable on the ground, Slice demonstrated a mighty punch and eventually finished Thompson in the third round.

The brief, three-punch combination, which left Thompson glassy-eyed and caused the fight to be stopped, also poses the obvious question: Could Slice be the force that revives heavyweight boxing?

No mention of the fact that the stoppage was highly questionable and has come under heavy fire? Even if you do agree with the stoppage, this is painting it in a far different light.

Also, I wasn't aware that question was so obvious. A streetfighter in his mid-30s (who obviously long ago had some sort of formal boxing training or something, granted) does not exactly strike me as the potential force that revives heavyweight boxing.

Picture it! Sicily, 1912. Forget Sicily. Picture it! Kimbo against...Wladimir Klitschko. Not exactly the tomato can MMAers he's been fighting, or the fat guys in parking lots he fought before. Picture it! Kimbo against...pretty much anyone.

I'm going to try to put this as nicely as possible, and remember that I like Kimbo: professional boxing would not be any easier for him than professional MMA is. Sure there's a ground game for him to be concerned about in MMA, and in boxing there's the fact that these guys really know what they're doing standing up, and that even the best MMA boxers never get to get into full boxing mode for any real period of time in training or in a fight. Too much other stuff for them to worry about.

Boxing experts could argue that the 6-foot-2 Slice might have trouble cutting the reach of the 6-6 Klitschko, but Slice showed his shots can fell taller opponents, such as the 6-4 Thompson.

This might make my blog seem rather pointless overall, I suppose, but I'll tell you right now that it does not take an expert to realize that Wladimir Klitschko would beat the crap out of Kimbo Slice. Also, taller isn't really the issue. Mike Tyson beat lots of tall guys. It's a talent level. And for another thing, he didn't really prove that his shots could fell Thompson. Let's pile on something else: comparing Wladimir Klitschko as a boxer to James Thompson as an MMAer is ludicrous. One is at the very top of his sport and division; the other is a knockaround guy in his.

Last week, in a conference call before the fight against Thompson, Slice said his goals were ``receiving one of the heavyweight titles -- boxing or MMA -- and holding on to them.''

Interestingly, Slice mentioned boxing first. Maybe the Miami street fighter will don boots and 10-ounce gloves, after all.

 

Many boxing fans would welcome the move.

Yeah, probably. And they'd probably go bananas when Slice knocked out a couple of bums or maybe a beyond-faded old man, just like everyone did when Slice got Bo Cantrell to tap out before anything even happened, or when old fart Tank Abbott couldn't out-thump him. What happened when someone who wasn't scared, wasn't old, and was in shape came at him? Didn't go so swimmingly.

If Kimbo tries pro boxing, there are probably lots of guys he could knock out. And once he's done with those unprepared victims (maybe he could get Adryan, "The Bouncer" or "two 380 pound dudes" to show up in a ring), he'll run into the inevitable wall that he'll be thrust against by Shaw and the fact that he's got a lot of fans.

Just like Kimbo has no real business fighting James Thompson just yet (which is at the crux of the matter here, no matter what anyone says), he'd no doubt be placed in a boxing ring against someone he can't beat, someone that knows how to negate everything Kimbo can do.