Son of late Kimbo Slice to make debut for father’s MMA company three months after his death

The son of the late internet fighting sensation Kimbo Slice is set to make his MMA debut, less than three months after his father’s death.

Slice - real name Kevin Ferguson - passed away on June 7 from congestive heart failure and a mass on his liver. He was due to headline Bellator’s UK debut on July 16 at London’s O2 Arena, but may have had to withdraw from the show even had he remained alive, because he required a heart transplant.

And it is for Bellator that his first-born of six children, Kevin Ferguson Junior, will compete on August 26. The company stages Bellator 160 at the Honda Center in Anaheim, California and a Bellator official confirmed the news to Sherdog.com.

“I was always around the fight business and everything, so I saw it and I understood what was going on,” Ferguson told Associated Press.

“I just knew without a doubt that one day, this was what I wanted to do.”

The show will be headlined by Benson Henderson versus Patricio Freire to determine the next contender to the Bellator lightweight title, but Ferguson Jr - nicknamed ‘Baby Slice’ by some, in recognition of his father’s moniker - does not yet have a confirmed opponent.

This is quite common in fight sports with greenhorn competitors: they will often fight on a more frequent basis than the marquee performers, usually against ‘soft’ opposition to allow them to build experience, momentum and a connection with the audience. As a result, such pairings don’t require the same amount of advance notice and preparation as top fights.

Ferguson Jr. won his amateur debut on March 12 with a first-round knockout against Tom Brink at a Warrior Nation Xtreme Fighters Alliance card in Chicopee, Massachusetts.

His father performed for UFC, Bellator, EliteXC and also in seven professional boxing contests. Though his official MMA record was a respectable 5-2-1 and he was unbeaten in seven boxing contests, he was mostly utilised as an ‘attraction’ based on the YouTube street-fighting exploits that made him a star and paired with over-the-hill names such as Ken Shamrock and Tank Abbott to appeal to the casual audience.

TMZ reported that Ferguson Jr received the full blessing of his father to follow in his footsteps before Slice’s death, and Junior admitted it’s very likely he’ll step into the Bellator cage without having fully processed the loss of his role model just yet.

“I won’t say I’m over it,” he explained, “But I’m working on it, I guess.

"I won’t say I adjusted well or it didn’t bother me, but I was talking to him a few days before, so I understood what was going on.

"It was more of a shock to the world, put it like that.

“It was still a very big tragedy, but I got through it. I’m still getting through it.”