Kimbo Slice still works at porn company that started his MMA career

Kevin “Kimbo Slice” Ferguson

Kevin “Kimbo Slice” Ferguson might have made hundreds of thousands of dollars as a star in the now-defunct EliteXC. And he’ll probably make a few extra hundred when he returns to the cage after a five-year layoff to fight Ken Shamrock at Bellator 138.

But to this day, when he’s not in the gym, he works in an office. It would be a routine job, if not for the business it conducts.

Slice (4-2 MMA, 0-0 BMMA), 41, coordinates security for the Internet porno website Reality Kings. As far as he’s come with fighting, he’s still tied to the adult industry. It helps him provide for his wife and six children.

“I’m not hands on,” Slice told MMAjunkie. “When they need security at certain spots, I’ll have guys go to certain locations to make sure everything runs smooth.”

“I do a lot of networking, as well,” he adds.

Slice was an Internet sensation when EliteXC signed him to a contract. Videos of his brawls in backyards against opposition such as “Big D,” “Afropuff,” and “Big Mac” generated millions of hits on YouTube. What many don’t know is that his first street fight captured on video was posted by a porn website.

A former football player, Slice once moonlighted as a security guard on porn sets and bounced at strip clubs. When he became an MMA star, his entourage included members of Reality Kings. Its former owner, “Icy” Mike Imber, became his manager when he transitioned to professional fighting.

Imber remains as a manager and friend. Other opportunities, meanwhile, have arrived. Slice has appeared in several movies and videos as a tough guy. He embarked on a brief and often bizarre boxing career.

Over the past two years, however, things slowed down. And so, Slice worked, he said, “every day.”

Early this year, Imber called him with news. Bellator wanted to reboot an ill-fated fight with Shamrock (28-15-2 MMA, 0-0 BMMA) in EliteXC in 2008.

“I was still in and out of the gym at the time, because I never knew when something would come up,” he said. “Before the month would end, I would go into the gym maybe three times. I was in the boxing ring every now and then, hitting pads, because the sh-t feels good. I like hitting sh-t.

“Over the years, I was taking care of my family and spending time with them. The first five years of my pro career, my kids grew up so f-cking fast, and I missed a lot with them.”

Slice said he has a tendency to “take it easy” when he doesn’t have a fight scheduled. But it appears his rematch with Shamrock has reignited old passions. On a teleconference in support of Bellator 138, which takes place June 19 at St. Louis’ Scottrade Center, he talked tough about the UFC Hall of Famer, who suffered a cut that forced him to withdraw last-minute from their headliner on the CBS-televised “EliteXC: Heat.”

“I just hope he takes this fight, because who cuts themselves? You do sh-t like that when you’re scared, when you’re afraid,” he told MMAjunkie. “It’s as close as you come to committing suicide. I just hope he fights; I hope he don’t p-ssy out. Because of he does, I’m taking it to the dressing room, and we’re just going to do an old fashioned bare-knuckle right there in St. Louis. F-ck it.”

After Shamrock was scratched in 2008, Slice went on to face replacement and UFC vet Seth Petruzelli, who knocked him out in 14 seconds in one of the most notorious upsets in MMA history.

Absent from Slice’s walkout and fight attire on that night was a patch from Reality Kings, his longtime sponsor. CBS forbid him from wearing it on camera.

When Slice walks to the Bellator cage next week, it will be his first MMA fight in five years. Imber will be in his corner. His work logo, representing all those hours spent around vice, far away from swinging heavy bags, will be nowhere to seen.

For more on Bellator 138, check out the MMA Rumors section of the site.