The Clown at Midnight: Dissecting Your Love for the YouTube Legend

(Photo by Robert Laberge/Getty Images)

Projected to be the most watched non-live fight in the history of time and space, with over seven million eyes tuned to Spike TV.

Kevin Ferguson will be center stage for the first time since his ill-fated contest versus Seth Petrezelli at Elite XC: Heat.

Tonight, the fight he hails as "One of my best" will be aired. In it, he'll take on semi-credible IFL standout Roy "Big Country" Nelson.

I feel like we've been here before? Contemplating the legitimacy of the Internet sensation with enough charisma to fill Valles Marineris.

The answer to that unfortunately is we have...the man was KO'd by Seth Petrezelli in 14 seconds. He needed to be saved against James Thompson (and that thing growing out of his head), and generally has looked inept in most of his fights.

By his own admission, he's not a mixed-martial-artist. "He's a fighter" as if there was a difference.

To say I'm disappointed that the "best" organization in our sport has fished him out of his backyard, after almost a year, to undoubtedly get crushed doesn't even begin to describe my feelings on the situation.

What is the allure of the man? Does he take you back to the days of Art Jimmerson and his lone glove? Is the world in desperate need of the next Butterbean or Tank Abbott?

Is it too thick to understand that punching a guy in the face isn't the only form of combat? Does it think the past 14 years haven't happened?

Then again, maybe Kevin is the last of the Ronin in the dawn of the age of gunfire. Roaming the halls of The Ultimate Fighter house in search of that person that will bring to a close the age of slugging heavyweights with no gas tanks and nauseating ground games.

I mean the man no ill will. It's not him I blame. When Kevin Ferguson stops being a cult YouTube celebrity, who gets fluff pieces written about him. He'll be a traveling joke, scraping together a living to feed his family.

Which is nothing to laugh at. However the same public who made his rise possible will put him on the pedestal whenever we need a good MMA related joke.

Only when we say the punchline and laugh. It won't be Kevin Ferguson we laugh at. It will be ourselves, whether we see the irony or not.

Those will be some of the best jokes ever told.

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