Kevin “Kimbo Slice” Ferguson has decided to make his switch from mixed martial arts to pro-boxing after his loss to Seth “The Silverback” Petruzelli. Petruzelli seems to have ended Kimbo’s MMA career in just 14 seconds, making the Miami-based street fighter think twice about battling it out with true martial artists.
Although Kimbo respects MMA fighters and the sport itself, he feels that pro-boxing has always been his main passion. He recognizes the talent behind MMA, but explains how it just wasn’t for him. Kimbo became extremely popular over the years through youtube videos with illegal backyard fights he held in his hometown, southern Florida. It was due to those brawls that he attained such fame. Kimbo gained further popularity while being a part of the EliteXC promotion before its demise, but now he’s off to the world of boxing. The maturity and respect he has gained through his short MMA career has made him understand the reality behind professional fighting.
Here’s a snip from Kimbo Slice himself as he talked to the Nassau Guardian:
“Boxing is really my first desire. I have a lot of love for it and believe I can do pretty well. [The sport of] MMA is somewhat of a project for me. Boxing is one dimensional while there are a lot of dimensions in MMA. I don’t think it would be a hard transition from MMA to stand-up boxing because of my fighting style. Not taking anything away from boxing preparation, MMA training is extremely hard. When you consider martial arts training, you have to prepare for kicks to the head and legs, and opponents wanting to grapple and throwing you to the ground, pounding you with their knees and hands, whereas in boxing you just have to be prepared to weave and bob although the training can be just as intense. At this point in my career, I want to take that same drive and focus that I invested in MMA and put that into training for pro-boxing cards.”
