Sports Biz

CNBC.com Kimbo Slice

Four months ago, I said that watching the Kimbo Slice fight live was one of the most exciting sports events I had ever witnessed. I said this because I was so intrigued with this guy--his look, his homeless story, his YouTube following.

But I also noted that Slice came frightening close to losing and that since his success was so important to the money-hemorrhaging Elite XC that he fights for, he absolutely had to win a bunch of fights in order to keep the organization is business.

Well, after waiting four months for Slice's next fight, I watched him lose in 14 seconds to last minute replacement Seth Petruzelli, the man who will become known as mixed martial arts' version of Buster Douglas.

The problem is that mixed martial arts is not a viable business, just like professional football is not a viable business. The viable business is the UFC. The viable business is the NFL. It's why the International Fight League didn't make it. It's why the XFL didn't make it.

It's why when Elite XC's last contracted fight is over--it has one more to complete the four-fight deal with CBS--the organization will be on the ropes.

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But this will turn out to be a great case study in sports marketing.

You have a really marketable asset in a guy like Kimbo Slice. The problem is, he's a good street fighter against normal guys. He's just not that good of an MMA fighter. So you know that he has to continue to win, but there aren't enough weak guys for him to fight. In fact, as was proven in Petruzelli, a decent guy can beat him. The other problem is that you can only fix the results if the guy makes it to three rounds, which you're never guaranteed. Slice couldn't have won on Saturday night. He was getting pounded. Mike Tyson was Mike Tyson because he really was a talented fighter, along with all the weird baggage that we loved.

Not having a fixed result was the XFL's problem. You can turn Rod Smart into "He Hate Me" but unless you have the defense in on the act and every play is scripted, you can't automatically make him the star of the league and have him run for 500 yards every game. On the contrary, Vince McMahon could arbitrarily decide that Koko B. Ware will be the champion for a year.

After Slice barely won in June, 53 percent of voters in our Sports Biz poll said that Slice was still marketable. We'll ask that same question today as well as an Elite XC health question.

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