RIP Kimbo Slice

If you're out of high school but not yet old enough to be a parent, chances are you grew up - at least a little bit - with Kimbo Slice's street fight videos. For a sheltered suburban kid, these videos were almost surreal. This actually happened in someone's backyard (try not to fall down the rabbit hole on Youtube):



And, of course, here's my favorite of his videos:


Last night, sadly, we learned that complications from a heart condition ended his life at age 42. Though I'm sure the public response won't be quite as glowing as it was for Muhammad Ali, I imagine there will be more than a few old Kimbo stories that get told over the next few days.

I wanted to learn about how this whole Street Fight/Money Talks thing developed. So I headed over to Wikipedia, and I'll give you the summary in bullet form:

• Kimbo Slice's real name is Kevin Ferguson
• He was born in the Bahamas (on February 8, 1974) but grew up in Florida
• His childhood house was destroyed by Hurricane Andrew in 1992 and his family lived in their car for a month until it was rebuilt
• He sort of played football for Bethune-Cookman and the University of Miami
• He also sort of tried out for the Dolphins in 1997
• Kimbo bounced at a strip club, then was a bodyguard/driver for the guys behind Reality Kings
• He was arrested and charged for carrying a concealed weapon in 2002
• In 2003, the first street fight video was released
• By 2005, he was training for mixed martial arts fights
• He had a 7-0 record in his boxing career, and a 5-2-1 record in his MMA career
• His two most important IMDb entries are "Merry Christmas, Drake and Josh" and "The Scorpion King 3"
• He is survived by three daughters, three sons, and his fiancee

At the risk of being insensitive, here are pictures of Kimbo's two big acting roles: