The Next Great Crossover Hype

In Q1 2008 Brock Lesnar and Kimbo Slice have emerged as the first big "crossover" stars to be promoted to the forefront of MMA. Brock Lesnar brought amateur wrestling and WWE hype to the table, and while he didn't win in his UFC debut against Frank Mir, he looked pretty damn good and put a near-record number of asses in seats in the process.
Kimbo Slice was a little bit more of a fringe play; the YouTube-documented street fighter was well-known enough but shrouded in skepticism stepping into the octagon for EliteXC, and many would argue that once-formidable Tank Abbott was little more than a glorified can for the heavyweight. Regardless, Kimbo KO'd him with no less authority than could be expected from a "legit" MMA standout-- by sheer clock-time in the ring with a 43 second fight that included *TWO* ref stoppages, Chuck Liddell with a baseball bat could not have put the aging Abbott down much quicker. And the roaring crowd hardly seemed bothered by the legitimacy of his opponent-- in a ShoXC main event or a Miami backyard, the Kimbo brand is about some fool getting SLEPT. Thus far Kimbo delivers.

So what's next? Fresh off overtures to the pro-wrestling crowd and the internet's dumbest 10%, I can't help but imagine there are further untapped markets Dana White and the me-toos will be courting in the coming months. Here's my guess:

AMERICAN GLADIATORS.

Sure, the only shots they've taken to-date thus far are probably Steroids boosters and the pinups from whatever off-brand beefcake circuit NBC redeemed them from, and the only Gladiator with ground-and-pound experience is "Militia," whose recently-uncovered gay porn history is only shocking in its singularity amongst the cast.
I don't mean to clown too hard, but trust me-- none of these cats were exactly out there swordfighting (in the Gladiatorial) sense before the writers' strike.

But regardless, these gents are in the American public's eye in a BIG way right now. And they are tremendous physical specimens with real strength and agility. I'm not saying they'd win in a real fight with a professional fighter by any stretch of the imagination, but they can probably cut a good amount of water weight if needed, and there's one dude in the cast who really has some good sprawl and footwork in the gauntlet-- even if he does have those stupid cube things on his hands: the man they call "Justice."

While alternating between snottily decrying the death of American Television and roaring my lungs out in approval for "Gladiators" the show, I've noticed that Justice is something of a ringer in the combat events. He has great balance, ridiculous wingspan, and if I were the producers I just might pick him to be the gatekeeper at the end of the Gauntlet game EVERY TIME. Being the exhaustive researcher I am, I just googled him mid-post and discovered the following:

1) His full name is Justice "Justice" Smith.

2) He's dabbled in KICKBOXING as well as professional wrestling with a stint on MTV WWF reality show "Tough Enough." Let's not get too excited, though-- according to Sherdog he's posted a professional record of 0-1.


An impressive shot of Justice Smith, ostensibly taken sometime before he's stopped by TKO 31 seconds into the first round.

The Election Season and MMA

Here's a new reason why I love this sport-- it may well be the greatest proxy by which the diverse peoples of the United States can truly beat the hell out of each other.

I was just watching a video interview of Matt Hughes talking about the community in Iowa where he's opening his new "H.I.T. Squad" gym, when it struck me-- very few sports have athletes that represent where they're from quite as much as MMA.
Franchise-based professional sports have long been the benchmark of territorial pride in American culture, but most if not all of these games are only superimposing any sort of true regional significance on the athletes and teams they're comprised of. These contests are most always "wars by proxy," played out by mercenary professional competitors who hang their hat in a given place based on franchise distribution rather than personal preference.

It's MMA where you can actually watch a God-loving Iowa farm boy with wrestling background and conservative values square off with a wise-talking Long Islander who runs a Jiu-Jitsu gym. Where you can whet your philosophical desire for meritocracy by watching the middleweight golden boy of the flyover states get his nose broken by a former office clerk from Curitaba, Brazil. Without having to force the awkward bridge of actual cultural camaraderie with one's athletes based on a uniform, there's a horse for everyone in the MMA game.

For me there's Kenny Florian, a Ben-Stiller-esque Communications Major from Boston College who entered his Lightweight title fight dressed as a Kurosawa Ronin to the theme from "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly," (he later acknowledged this as a nod to the Kurosawa-Leone thematic interplay of the '60s).
Or there's BJ Penn, the laid-back hapa-Hawaiian mutt who's often accused of allowing laziness to hamper his true potential.

Others I live with might find something to cheer for in Chuck Liddell, a lifetime Californian and graduate of Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, or the hard-punching network-engineer Joe Lauzon.

For all of us there are equally strange and diverse standard-bearers to choose. The overarching fact is that without the money in MMA to truly buy people out of their lives and locales, there are very few pastimes that can more accurately reflect the depth and diversity of the American people across the board, and their channeled potential dislike for one another in the right situation.