Jared Shaw is a promoter so his job is to hype up his clients. Right now he’s working on building up Kimbo Slice’s boxing career. Kimbo won his boxing debut last weekend with a 10-second knockout and he’s planning to fight again in November. Shaw has been somewhat measured in his hype of Kimbo, not really doing too much press prior to Slice’s August fight. Perhaps Shaw knew what he was doing — he understood they would get the most buzz by showing what Kimbo could do, not telling everyone. Now that Kimbo has had a strong performance in the ring, Shaw is bringing on the praise.
“I have been telling everyone since we got in this thing that he is like Mike Tyson,” Shaw told Fight Hype. “He reminds me of Tyson. And that is not a comparison of skillset; it’s a comparison of charisma, energy, and one-punch knockout power. I told him I was ecstatic with the performance and where we are at, but obviously we got a lot of work to do.”
You’ll notice that Shaw is quite measured with his words, as if they recognize that Kimbo’s MMA career was based mostly on hype. It feels like they’re trying to build his boxing career based on accomplishments in the ring and that’s why Shaw says there’s still a lot of work to do. He’s right. Kimbo isn’t anywhere near ready to fight a championship-level fighter. He may never get to that point. But with his one-punch knockout power, energy, and charisma, he’ll keep drawing attention anytime he fights.
