![]() ![]() The pending fight was a closely guarded secret to all but the most connected from the local fight community, and many, including Lauzon, found out only hours before. ![]() At the time, the Massachusetts State Athletic Commission was informally supervising MMA fights, so Rhode Island seemed a less risky spot. Local fighter Mat Santos agreed to host the fight at his gym after his one-time pupil Gannon reached out. “It was very informal rules,” Lauzon added with a laugh. “And all of a sudden Kimbo’s guys start rushing like, ‘Oh, you can’t do that.’ The rules said nothing against grappling, but they looked at it as it was supposed to be just boxing. “Kimbo kind of went for a takedown a little bit and Gannon grabbed his neck, and at that point Gannon, he’s really not choking him, but he’s kind of holding him,” Lauzon said. It quickly became clear the raw, muscle-bound Slice was not well prepared for grappling. “It’s almost like seeing like a movie hero, like Jean-Claude Van Damme from ‘Kickboxer,’ and then he’s a real life person, he’s right there,” Lauzon said. UFC veteran Joe Lauzon, then a student at Wentworth Institute of Technology, was filming the fight that night. KIMBO SLICE BACK HOW TOThe fight unfolded in a manner foreign to Slice, as Gannon was accustomed to taking a punch and knew how to clinch, unlike many of the street toughs Slice KO’d in Miami in viral Internet videos that sparked his fame.Īfter 13 grueling minutes - which saw Gannon land many body shots and Slice bloodying Gannon’s face, leaving a gruesome hematoma - Slice fell to the mat in exhaustion with a spent Gannon leaning on him, peppering him with shots. Slice, real name Kevin Ferguson, was to battle Sean “The Cannon” Gannon, a Boston cop with experience on the local boxing and MMA circuit. The invincible aura around Kimbo Slice, the Miami street fighter-turned-MMA star who died of heart failure last week at age 42, was punctured for the first time in 2004 in a nondescript, third-floor private gym in Cranston, R.I. ![]()
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