UNCASVILLE, Conn. – Kevin Ferguson Jr. was just a kid when he first was around Jorge Masvidal.
Back then, “Baby Slice” stood on the sidelines in his Miami backyard while his dad, Kimbo Slice, threw down with any number of opponents. The viral videos made his dad a streetfighting legend well before he became an MMA fighter.
And while many of the fighters that rolled through only were local legends, another went on to become one of the most respected fighters in MMA.
A young Masvidal was one of the men who fought in Slice’s backyard. “Ponytail,” as he was called, famously fought Kimbo Slice’s protege, “Ray,” in a brutal rematch until Ray could take no more.
“I remember watching him fight – he fought our guy Ray,” Ferguson told MMA Junkie this past week ahead of his Bellator 232 fight. “It was right after my dad fought the Cuban boxer. It was a great fight. It was a war. They were going at it. He had cardio – no stopping. He was on it from start to finish, and he won that fight.”
Ferguson said when he was 9 and 10 years old, watching grown men fight in his backyard, he had no fear. It was adulation.
No adults tried to steer him away from it, necessarily. Instead, Kimbo told him if he was going to fight, make sure he got paid.
“I was in love. I was in love. I fell in love with it,” Ferguson said. “I was watching it like, ‘My turn – when can I fight?’ But my dad always told me not to do a street fight. He said to go professional with it. And that’s what I did. But I would’ve loved to do a bare-knuckle fight – that would’ve been pretty cool.”
On Saturday, Masvidal (34-13 MMA, 11-6 UFC) might have some of those old street fights in the corner of his mind when he takes on Nate Diaz (20-11 MMA, 15-9 UFC) in the UFC 244 main event at Madison Square Garden in New York.
The welterweight fight isn’t for a UFC title, but a special belt was created just for the event. The winner will be dubbed the “BMF” – “Baddest Mother(Expletive)” – something that Masvidal certainly has that old South Florida brawling experience with.
Check out the video above to hear more from “Baby Slice” on Masvidal ahead of UFC 244.
'Baby Slice' remembers 'Ponytail': When Jorge Masvidal was street fighting in his backyard
