Tempers were flaring at the EliteXC post-fight press conference.
Brett Rogers, who creamed Jon Murphy in 61 seconds in the 1st fight
that aired on CBS, was one of the 1st fighters at the press conference, and went
right after Kimbo's performance.
"I seen some [expletive] today," Rogers
said. "I seen some [expletive], some garbage-ass [expletive]. I'm a heavyweight,
and I feel I'm a true heavyweight. (James) Thompson? Much respect. But I'm
saying it like this. Kimbo Slice, man, that was just garbage, man."
Kimbo
arrived about 20 minutes later. He respectfully shook the hand of every fighter
on the panel. Rogers did so, but he did it reluctantly, and there
was no doubt on anyone's face that he had a disgusted look on his
face as he refused to look Kimbo in the eye.
When a reporter
brought up Rogers' earlier statements to Kimbo, the Internet Sensation said
"Everybody's entitled to their opinion."
The reporters smelled the trouble brewing. A reporter asked Rogers if he'd
like to fight Kimbo in his next match.
"Looking at the fight tonight,
man, yeah," Rogers said. "A man is man. And what I saw in this man today, it was
just garbage."
Rogers then turned and directly told Kimbo that in his
eyes, Kimbo tapped during the time James Thompson was reigning down punches and
elbows at the end of round 2.
"I'm going to speak it real," Rogers said.
"It was garbage. You did tap. You did tap out (and) I was right
there."
This is where things escalated.
Kimbo had enough, saying "That sounds like a challenge, big
dog."
Kimbo and his entourage confronted Rogers, who bellowed
out "It is a challenge."
EliteXC Live Events President Gary Shaw
and Vice President Jared Shaw held back Kimbo, who was also being restrained by
members of his own entourage. Phil Baroni was holding back Rogers.
An enraged Kimbo yelled "I ain't letting no bush [expletive] call me
out like that, man!"
Rogers countered with "You talking all hard, and you
bring that garbage-ass [expletive] today."
"You a hater," yelled several
members of Kimbo's crew at Rogers.
"I'm a hater?" Rogers yelled
back, "I'm a hater because I'm putting [Kimbo] on the spot?"
AOL
Fan House reports From my vantage point at cageside, I didn't see
Slice tap out. There was discussion along press row about a tapout but everyone
seemed to say they heard someone else say it first. Thompson said he didn't and
Slice obviously denied it so either Rogers saw something different or he's a
savvy marketer who knows how to put himself in position to fight the league's
big dog. Promoter Gary Shaw
said the next CBS show would be in August at the earliest, perhaps he found
himself his main event?
Dave Doyle of Yahoo!Sports reported
Kimbo’s buzz had largely been fueled by the clips of his YouTube
fights, where he had mainly crushed unsuspecting rubes in a matter of seconds.
Saturday night’s promotion heavily leaned on Slice, leading viewers to believe
another quick KO was on the way.
“We’ve put a tremendous burden on Kimbo
Slice,” said Elite XC President Gary Shaw. “We’ve set the bar so high that
anything other than a tremendous performance is going to seem like a
letdown."
