04/23/2006: "Kimbo Slice---Not a Man You Want to Mess With."

Hi All,

Well, as some of you know, I am a rampant Internet researcher. I mean, I research in libraries and, y'know, uhhhh...Research-toriums...and all those other founts where people go to sup at the nutritious teat of knowledge, but, overall, I do a lot of research on the Internet. I think this is because, as a fiction writer, it's less about getting accurate facts all the time as it is about just getting a feel for things. I know a lot of people are down on Wikipedia, and I'm sure for good reason, but for simply getting a loose footing on lots of things, Wikipedia is great.

This is not a post extolling the benefits of Wikipedia, though they did agree to pay me a small stipend for mentioning them on my blog. I've been fortunate to line up a few corporate sponsors for this blog. In fact, this entire post is brought to you by Sedgewick's Corn Pads.

Sedgewick's: the ONLY name in Corn Pads.

As some know, my new novel, available on pre-order via Amazon.ca (buy it now, along with Sedgewick's Corn Pads---When you think Corn Pads, think SEDGEWICK'S), deals with the world of underground fighting. Now I'm sure I'll get hammered by people who think it's a FIGHT CLUB ripoff, and I suppose that can't really be avoided. Of course, truth be told, Chuck Palahniuk ripped ME off, then hopped in his time machine and went back ten years, wrote his novel and went on to huge success, and I'm left looking like a rip-off artist. Damn you, Chuck! Damn you and your filthy time machine!

But this is not a post about Chuck Palahniuk, or time machines, or Wikipedia---

COMMERCIAL BREAK:

HUSBAND [Coming home after a long day at work]: Ooooh-WE! My dogs are barking!

WIFE: Are your bunions acting up again, hon?

HUSBAND: You better believe it! Do we have any corn pads?

WIFE: Only generic ones.

HUSBAND: No Sedgewick's brand corn pads? Sweet sassafras! I might as well dip my feet in a pot of bubbling acid!

ANNOUNCER: Buy SEDGEWICK'S. If you don't, you're an idiot. And you aren't and idiot, ARE YOU?

BACK TO REGULARLY SCHEDULED BLOGGING:

I was never quite sure such a thing as underground fighting existed; it's sort of like the Yeti: I dearly wanted to believe there was such a thing but, in the abscence of any real proof, I just couldn't quite believe. But thanks to the wonders of the Internet, I now know it does happen. I have video proof.

Meet Kimbo Slice.

32 years old, ex-con, 10 years behind bars for unspecified reasons, 245 pounds, 6 foot 2, and about the nastiest, most fear-inducing man I've seen since a pre-Buster Douglas Iron Mike Tyson.

Kimbo Slice wants to fight. And he'll fight you. If you've got his fee---$10,000 bucks is the going rate---he'll come to your house or place of business and fight you. If he wins, he gets the money. And believe me, he will win.

Kimbo is the star of 3 fight videos circulating the Internet. The first one occurs in the backyard of a house in Florida, I think. It doesn't last long. Kimbo tears the other guy---no pushover, by the looks of it---a new one. There's a freeze-frame shot that ends the video where it looks like the other guy's eye is pushed halfway out of its socket.

The second fight, he loses. He fights a Boston-area policeman named Sean Gannon. They fight in what looks like a basement or the space under a shop; someone's laid down a wrestling mat and padded the walls. Do I need to tell you it's bloody, and you better have a strong stomach if you want to follow the links I'll post at the end of this? I'm guessing that's fairly self-evident. I've found that things like this have a pretty razor-thin cutoff: either you're totally fascinated and have stopped reading and clicked on the links already, or you're disinterested and vaguely grossed out and have also stopped reading.

The third fight reminds me of LION HEART, that Jean Claude Van Damme movie, where Jean was a pit fighter and fought in drained swimming pools, in a racquetball court, in an underground parking lot. In the third video, Kimbo Slice fights some poor dude on an airstrip. Like, out near some hangar near the Lear jets and whatever. It's a quick fight. The sound Kimbo's fist makes hitting this poor guy, the one and only real shot of the fight, is one of the more arresting noises you're likely to hear.

[SEDGEWICK'S Corn Pads Radio Commercial, circa 1952]:

COACH: Good job out there today, Alex. You really smacked the cover off that baseball!

ALEX: Thanks, skip. Can I get you to take a look at something?

COACH: What's that, slugger?

[ALEX takes off shoes and socks and shows COACH his feet]

COACH: Great Leaping Horny Toads! Your feet are cratered worse than the surface of the moon!

ALEX [on the verge of tears]: Can you help me, skip? They hurt. They hurt real bad.

COACH [smiling benignly]: This old coach has got a few tricks up his sleeve [produces a packet of SEDGEWICK'S brand Corn Pads]. Slap these on, kiddo, and you'll be right as rain in no time.

ALEX: Are these the best?

COACH [chuckling]: Best and ONLY, tiger. Anyone who doesn't use SEDGEWICK'S Corn Pads are filthy hun communists and should be rounded up to rot in a gulag! Ho ho ho ho!

ALEX: Thanks, skip!

So, anyway, if you want to check out those underground fight vids, Kimbo Slice in all his glory, here are a few links. They won't work and I don't really need to tell you that, but you can find your way there.

http://discussitonline.com (This one you need to sign up for; takes literally 2 seconds. Lots of undergorund fight vids, on top of the Kimbo Slice stuff. Big time waster).

For Kimbo:
p214.ezboard.com/bkimbosliceforum

All best,

Craig

(Buy SEDGEWICK'S!)

PS: Regarding the Discussitonline site: needless to say, please---please!---be warned that there are some disturbing, and to some people offensive videos on that site. Skinhead beatings, awful schoolyard beatings, etc. Reaction to these will vary; it goes without saying that I don't condone or revel in those sorts of things. All fair warning.