Kimbo Slice, Dada 5000, and the battle for the 'World Street Championship'

Kimbo Slice

Give Bellator MMA credit for at least this much: Whatever this fight is, this thing between Kimbo Slice (real name Kevin Ferguson) and “Dada 5000” (real name Dhafir Harris), it is 100 percent, all the way that thing.

For one brief moment, let’s not even get hung up on whether that is good or bad. We’ll get to that, but first let’s just appreciate the all-in, no-turning-back nature of it. And to do that, well, the flyers are as good a place to start as any.

Somehow I missed this last week, but Bellator launched a social media campaign/giveaway with the hashtag #TakeYourHood. The stakes of the giveaway portion are fairly low (exactly one person stands to win a “Bellator 149 autographed glove prize pack,” according to the website), but the game itself is the real prize.

To play, first you download and print off this poster promoting the “World Street Championship” fight between Mr. Slice and Mr. 5000. Once that’s done, then you post that flyer “in your hood.” Finally, you share a picture of said flyer (and, as background scenery, said hood) on Twitter or Instagram.

Naturally, you append the #TakeYourHood hashtag, because otherwise your social media friends might just think you’re taking pictures for fun and not as serious, prize-winning business.

Dhafir Harris

So basically what you do is go around town putting up Bellator promotional materials, like some kind of sad street team, which is fitting for a kind of sad street fight that you almost can’t help but watch in spite of yourself.

Slice is 42, a former YouTube sensation who became famous back when YouTube sensations were still a new enough phenomena that you couldn’t even say the phrase without smirking.

Harris (or do you just say 5000, like he’s a droid or something?) is 38, a guy who never even reached the level of YouTube sensation, but who became almost famous in part because Slice was already famous, and also because he appears as a central figure in the Billy Corben documentary “Dawg Fight.”

These are two men who, if they got into an actual street fight right now, would have to be considered old enough to know better. They’re also two men who owe their current livelihoods, such as they are, to their street fighting roots.

Whereas the normal play for MMA promoters is to pit such backyard brawlers against other, more traditional MMA fighters, here we see that rare matchup that promises to be all martial and no art. Calling it the “World Street Championship” is another way of telling us that this is big without trying to tell us that it matters.

And, let’s be honest, something about that genuinely works here. This is a fight that you can get into as long as you’re not asked to take it too seriously. If you start thinking about how many much better fighters there are on the Bellator roster who aren’t getting anywhere near this sort of push, sure, you’ll bum yourself right out. But if you can will yourself to imagine that it’s taking place in a boat salvage yard instead of in the world’s second-best MMA promotion, then it absolutely feels like it’s worth a couple minutes of your time on a Friday night.

You know what UFC President Dana White always says, about how if there’s a basketball game on one street corner, a bunch of other stick-and-ball sports on the other corners, then two guys fighting on the last corner, that that’s the one people would gather around to watch? This fight proves that theory almost too well.

It’s the street fight that people would watch even if there were legitimate boxing and MMA bouts on the other corners. Certainly, it’s the street fight that people would watch even if there were other Bellator bouts on other corners.

Bellator seems to realize that, at least, and it’s not shying away from what this is (and isn’t). It’s putting it right out there. And by out there, I mean on a poster that it would like you to print out and hang somewhere in your hood.

That it is asking you to do this with little hope of reward is also kind of fitting. Because this fight, this thing, whatever it is? You know you’ll stop to watch it. You also know what you’re likely to see.

For more on Bellator 149, check out the MMA Rumors section of the site.