THE MM-AGE OF EQUALITY

THE MM-AGE OF EQUALITY

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By The Yacman, Ron Yacovetti - Correspondent, MMA with Yac and J

This Saturday night EliteXC returns to primetime TV with it's third installment of Saturday Night Fights on CBS, entitled "HEAT". The card is strong and the addition of Andrei Arlovski vs. Roy 'Big Country' Nelson from Affliction, only made this more of an alluring event.

But it's the headline bout, Kimbo Slice vs. Ken Shamrock, that creates the most chatter, diverse opinions and expectations.

And, yes—this main event is an effective enough piece of bait to, once again, get the EliteXC fans, MMA fans and EliteXC haters to tune in. Many of these people will enjoy the fights, happy to see it on TV, while others will watch with the careful eye of a field archaeologist, digging for flaw after flaw in the show and the fight quality.

The biggest question I cannot help but ask myself, is, "Why? Why is this a compelling, pick-em, main event fight?"

Two main reasons come to mind:

1) Styles make fights

Kimbo Slice, while working hard with Bas Rutten on his ground game, is still a stand up fighter when instinct kicks in. If he had looked remotely adept at ground defense and offense against James Thompson, then the leap to being more well-balanced just one fight later, would be more believable.

Realistically, a natural athlete like Kimbo, even in his 30's, will be better every single time —win, lose or draw. He just will. But anyone who has taken as few as ONE jiu-jitsu lesson can tell you that it is not a craft you can suddenly master and know instinctually (i.e. controlling breathing, setting up next two moves, etc) too quickly.

This aspect of an MMA fight also just happens to be an area where Ken Shamrock spent years doing impressive amounts of damage. Ken and ground fighting are about as synonymous as it gets.

So in the fight, it would appear one combatant wants to make it a stand up war, while the other will look for a take down and quick submission. It's a classic MMA style match-up.

At this point it starts to become clear that despite the two men likely having polar opposite strategies, Ken Shamrock is very much in the role of the favorite. Here's where it all takes a turn off track. The World's Most Dangerous Man, as Ken is known, 'should' be heavily favored to win this fight. After all, he has a wealth more experience, he is more well rounded and has years in the cage that Kimbo is just starting to rack up.

So why then, is Kimbo Slice the favorite to win? Welcome to what I feel is the main reason—reason No. 2:

2) Age

Ken Shamrock is in his mid-forties. Kimbo Slice is in his mid-thirties. Ken is battle tested in the cage, but he's also damaged goods to a degree because of it. Throughout his career fighting, Ken Shamrock fought tough, tough fights. He was respected and feared because of the trials by fire he'd been through. And in spite of all Kimbo's street cred, he is not as physically old as he could be, should he have been through the cage wars like those Ken has been in.

It's comparable to the way that boxing hall of famer Roy Jones Jr. fights at 39 years old, while not being a physically aged fighter. Roy's only losses were a DQ and two knockouts. Those defeats didn't tax his body like the drawn out wars, exchanging shot for shot, would.

For his age, Kimbo Slice is physically young. Ken Shamock however, for his age is likely older, the result of many wars that are also responsible for his level of respect as a warrior.

The appropriately named EliteXC event is called HEAT. And it will have the pressure on all of the showcased fighters, but at no point higher than it will be cranked for Kimbo Slice and Ken Shamrock—two men ushering in the theme born of two sequential generations.

A theme where age, youth, wisdom, hunger and motive get so interwoven that the fighters suddenly seem to be equally matched.

Yacman