By Dave Meltzer

Will the real Kimbo Slice please stand up?

Before there was such a thing as UFC, and knowledge of what constituted real fighting with techniques from every fighting sport legal, people had their fantasy about the big streetfighter who wasn't trained in the gym who was the toughest guy in town. The role is as old as the fame of the pro wrestler Dick the Bruiser in the 50s, and maybe goes back to the pioneer heavyweight boxer, John L. Sullivan.

In the modern MMA era, the first guy in the U.S. who fit the bill was David "Tank" Abbott. In the early days of UFC, even though Abbott never got so much as one win in his career over a top-level fighter, he made himself a lucrative career in the sport and was one of the most popular and most talked about fighters in the UFC's early years.

Whether true or not, people bought into the idea that Abbott was this guy who would rather fight than do anything else, and would come off the bar stool and get into the cage and fight anyone at any time. Even today, Abbott has this unique charisma, because people think back to the early UFC's and remember his spectacular knockouts, even though most of them were a generation ago against fighters with skill levels that the only way they'd be at a UFC show today is if they purchased a ticket.

But Abbott has past 40, and his record over the past nine years is 1-7.

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