Bas Rutten Admits Handpicking Opponents

In an article on Sherdog, Bas Rutten talks about Kimbo Slice’s upcoming fight with Ken Shamrock.

For those of you that don’t know, Kimbo Slice will be fighting Ken Shamrock on October 4th for Elite XC. Ken Shamrock was the last person to beat Bas Rutten (Kimbo’s trainer).Bas had plenty to say regarding his fighters upcoming fight.

“I think it’ll be a great matchup,” Rutten said. “I would have liked to see it a bit later because of the experience difference, but I think it’s a great matchup.”

Bas, normally I agree with you but on this case I simply can’t.  Obviously there’s bias on both parts… I think Kimbo is THE chump of MMA and he’s your fighter so we’ll have to agree to disagree.  There were rumors about Kimbo fighting Sean Gannon and Brett Rogers and while that won’t be his next fight, Rutten hinted towards fighting at least Brett, if not both, at some point.

Sherdog rather sugar coated the selection of opponents that they take for Kimbo.  They called it a “delicate” process. In a blog the other day we talked about Kimbo Slice being the Rocky Balboa of Elite XC.  It seems they don’t mind admitting that they hand pick fighters for Kimbo that they think he can beat.  While it wasn’t said outright, reading between the lines make it apparent:

He doesn’t mind who he fights. It’s really me and Randy Kotami giving him fighters that he should fight because we want him to have a great career. And to put him against a top 10 [heavyweight] right now is just not a smart thing to do.

Of course putting him against a top heavyweight isn’t smart, he would get destroyed.  But as a fighter, how can you call yourself a badass when your trainers come out and say we put him against fighters that we know he can beat because we want him to have a great career?  It’s one thing for this to be done, it’s another thing for it to be done and be headlining events against nobodys.

The Thompson vs Slice fight went down as the most watched MMA Fight ever and this fight has the potential to top that rating with Ken Shamrock entering the ring.  The game plan for Kimbo and Ken are plain as day:  Kimbo will try and stay standing up and Ken will try to take it to the ground.  Bas isn’t dumb, he knows this:

We’re really looking for a knockout, of course, and we know Ken is going to go for the ground,” Rutten said. “Why would Ken stand up? His ground game’s really good. He should be smart. So Kimbo’s stand-up is too strong. So Ken for the ground — obviously, he’s going to go for leg locks. It’s not a big surprise what’s going to happen.”

I personally would love to see Slice get submitted by Shamrock.  Shamrock has lost the past 5 fights he’s fought against so it will be a lose-lose situation for Slice.

I always said Ken is a very dangerous guy. It doesn’t matter [if] he has [five] losses in a row, but for people, they’re gonna say now, ‘If Kimbo’s gonna win, he’s gonna win against a guy [with five losses in a row], and if he loses to a guy with [five] losses in a row…’ It’s never gonna be good.”

It wasn’t in my head until you said it Bas!

Last 3 posts by Mat Houchens

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