Kimbo Slice makes official UFC debut Saturday Night

The stage is set for one of MMA's biggest television draws to step into the octagon for his first official fight in the UFC this Saturday night at The Ultimate Fighter finals live on Spike TV.

Kimbo Slice, the wooly street fighter from Nassau Bahamas, is set to take on Houston Alexander in a fight that UFC hopes can match or exceed Slice's previously televised fights in the ratings.

But the road to UFC has not been without controversy for the 35-year-old heavyweight. Slice, whose real name is Kevin Ferguson, originally came to fame as an internet sensation for a series of street fights which were video taped and posted on youtube by the porn company he was working for as a bodyguard.

For years, Slice built an unfounded reputation as the one of the baddest men on the planet by beating up untrained tough guys. Even with all his popularity on the internet though, UFC would not touch him.

UFC had struggled for years to overcome the stigma of being viewed as human cockfighting that it has been tagged with from the very beginning. Those in charge figured using someone like Slice, who had very little legitimate fight training, would give their critics more ammunition to use against them.

"Streetfighting is just get out there and bang. It's whatever in a street fight. This is different. You have to be real smart in your decisions at this professional level of the game. In a street fight, it doesn't even matter," Slice told MMAJunkie.com in a recent interview.

Rival upstart promotion EliteXC had no such qualms against using Slice, since they were desperate for any media exposure whatsoever. EXC signed Slice in 2007 and he won his first three fights, defeating fighters Bo Cantrell, an aging Tank Abbott and James Thompson, before falling in defeat to Seth Petruzelli in October 2008

Slice had originally been scheduled to fight another past-his-prime fighter in Ken Shamrock, but Shamrock was cut while sparring on the day of the event and could not be cleared to fight. EXC scrambled to find a replacement and settled on Petruzeli, a light heavyweight who was scheduled to fight on the undercard and would be giving up at least 30 pounds to Slice.

Petruzelli handled Slice with ease, beating him in just 14 seconds by TKO. Two days later on a radio show in Orlando, Petruzelli hinted that EXC's promoters paid him extra to keep the fight standing and not try and exploit Slice's perceived weakness on the ground.

"The promoters kinda hinted to me and they gave me the money to stand and throw with him, they didn't want me to take him down," Petruzelli told the "Monsters in the Morning" radio show. "Let's just put it that way. It was worth my while to try and stand up punch him."

EXC denied anything like that was ever said. Later, Petruzelli recanted his comments, telling Dan Wetzel at Yahoo Sports, "What that meant was they offer a knockout bonus, submission bonuses, fight of the night bonuses. I think it just got misconstrued."

But the implication that the promoters had tried to influence the outcome was enough to end negotiations for a sale of EXC to Showtime, which before the October event was pretty much a done deal. Three weeks later, EXC declared bankruptcy and Slice was looking for work.

"You know what would happen if he fought in the UFC? I'd put him in against (lightweight champion) BJ Penn and (Slice) would get annihilated," White told the Long Beach Press-Telegram in 2008. "Kimbo has no credibility at all in MMA."

With Slice now a proven television draw though, White could no longer resist the chance to bring Kimbo to the UFC. He quickly seized on the opportunity to put Kimbo on UFC's reality show, "The Ultimate Fighter."

While much of the season focused on Slice, he did not fair well in the competition, losing an exhibition fight in the opening round of this season's heavyweight tournament to one of the of finalists competing on Saturday night, Roy "Big Country" Nelson. The fight was a major ratings success though, guaranteeing that Slice would fight again for the UFC. The Nelson-Slice episode had 5.3 million viewers on Spike, with the fight itself garnering 6.1 million viewers, making it the highest rated episode of TUF of all-time.

"Before the taping, (TUF coach) Rashad (Evans) wanted him out of there and wasn't happy about it," White told Kevin Iole of Yahoo Sports. "But his opinion changed after the Roy Nelson fight. And you know what? I think American opinion on the guy changed, too. He heard me talk all this [expletive] about him and he came in and he worked hard and he wanted to get better. He was kind of like the underdog and people were pulling for him."

Slice looks to get his professional career back on track Saturday night when he takes on light heavyweight "The Assassin" Houston Alexander (9-4 1NC) at a catch weight of 215 pounds, in a fight that many expect will be one of the highest rated television fights of all-time.

If Slice wins, he could mean big business for UFC on PPV, especially in a matchup with someone like Chuck Liddell, who can no longer fight top level talent but is still a major draw.

If he loses though, will fight fans continue to want to see a man who's lost three fights in a row to average competition? Or will Slice's unquantifiable charisma keep people wanting more no matter what? We will have to wait until after Saturday night to find out.

NOTES:

For those of you who have been watching this season of The Ultimate Fighter and are wondering when coaches Rashad Evans and Quinton Jackson will be fighting, well the things is, it won't be anytime soon. The fight had originally been scheduled for Saturday, December 12 in Jackson's hometown of Memphis, but there had been a falling out between Jackson and UFC over Jackson taking the roll of B.A. Baracus in the new A-Team movie, which led to Jackson announcing his retirement from fighting back in September.

On Thursday night, Jackson posted on his website that he'll be returning to UFC to fight Evans and finish out his contract.

With Evans fighting Thiago Silva on January 2, the earliest the fight could take place would be this summer, after Jackson is done with any press commitments for the release of the movie and is able to start training again.

The rest of the card for The Ultimate Fighter Finale on Spike at 8 p.m. Saturday night shapes up as:

MAIN CARD

PRELIMINARY CARD

** It was announced this week that Minnesota fighter Zak Jensen was released by UFC along with all of the other fighters who lost in the first round of this season of TUF, except for Kimbo Slice. Jensen had disappeared from the show after his loss in week six until being featured on the final episode on Wednesday Night. That episode saw Jensen continue to be harassed by his housemates, including allowing one to write "Linda" on his head in marker and then not being able to read what it said in the mirror, painting his body green to look like Shrek, and finally attacking fellow fighter James McSweeney after McSweeney locked him in the bathroom.