Kimbo Who? Joe Riggs Declares He Could Have Put Out Slice’s Fire Years Ago

According to Strike Force fighter Joe “Diesel” Riggs, the MMA world could have avoided the entire Kimbo Slice/EliteXC fiasco if the YouTube sensation hadn’t chickened out a few years back.
In an interview with 8 Count News, Riggs opens up about an incident between him and Slice in 2003, when Kimbo was first building his resume on teh Internets. Slice demanded a bounty to fight all comers, but when Riggs got the money, Slice changed the rules and ran away from the fight.
What could have (not) been.

8countnews: Speaking of fights that could’ve happened. There’s a story about you and Kimbo Slice almost fighting years ago. For those readers who haven’t heard the story, tell us about it.

Joe Riggs: In 2003, he was all over the internet making big waves fighting nobodies. He was supposedly taking all comers. He said he would fight anybody that would put up fifty thousand dollars. I was training at Arizona Combat Sports back then and we had some guys contact his people tell them we had the fifty grand and to set up the fight with me. There was some discretion over where it would be and how it would be done. But, finally we got it together. So I was ready to go out there and beat him up real bad. Right before it happened, they claimed they had just found out I had pro experience and they canceled it. All this stuff with him and Elite XC would have all ended right there before it ever began. Dude, it made me sick how he was able to come out and make that much money. Then he pretty much single handedly brought down the whole organization. He’s a bum. Everybody around the sport knows that. But, that’s the way it goes.

Ouch. Kimbo is probably a better fighter than people give him credit for, but we have to wonder: if Riggs had blasted Kimbo a few years back, would the world have ever heard of him? Would Slice have ever moved beyond the realm of backyard BBQ’s to the bright lights of national network television?
Our guess is an emphatic “no.”
MMA INTERVIEW: Joe “Deisel” Riggs [8countnews]
Image [Cage Potato]