Dark Side of the Cage debuts with story of Kimbo Slice, including ‘tragic’ Dada 5000 fight

fKimbo Slice is the first of 10 topics that will be discussed in-depth on Vice TV’s newest Dark Side series.

Dark Side of the Cage debuts Wednesday night at 10 p.m. ET on Vice TV, and it kicks off with Kimbo Slice: Rise of a Backyard Brawler. The episode features Bas Rutten, Ken Shamrock, and more to help tell the story of Slice, whose real name is Kevin Ferguson.

One of the show’s executive producers Tim Healy says the idea for the show came after his company helped tell the story of the early days of the Ultimate Fighting Championship.

“My production company, Rail Splitter Pictures, we produced Dark Side of the 90’s for Vice, and when we were brainstorming episodes, we came up with let’s tell the story of the UFC,” Healy told MMA Fighting. “The promotion has gotten so popular over the last decade that we figured a lot of viewers don’t understand the early days and what they faced as a company. So we did a two-parter, we did 2 hours on the dark side of the UFC and it did really, really well. It was received really well and even beyond that, it was a blast to make.

“We had so much fun doing it and it rated really, really well. So when those ratings came in, we reached out to Vice right away and we said, ‘Look, there’s something here. We want to do more in the dark side space, let’s do Dark Side of the Cage. Let’s just dive into mixed martial arts and let’s dedicate an entire series to these stories.’ And that was about a year ago, and Vice was receptive. They jumped right on it and they greenlit these 10, one-hour episodes, and that’s really the backstory of the genesis of the idea.”

Other topics being featured on season one of the new program include Diego Sanchez, Ronda Rousey, Nate Diaz, Matt Hughes, and the rise and fall of Pride FC.

Healy said the first 10 episode topics were fairly obvious to all involved, and kicking things off with Slice seemed to be the best way to go — especially since he would likely be one of the more misunderstood athletes if you didn’t know him.

“You’ll be hard pressed to find anyone to say one bad thing about about Kimbo,” Healy explained. “He was obviously a force to be reckoned with, but I never met him, but from what everyone says, he was just the nicest guy.”

The story of Slice discusses his infamous backyard fighting days that made him a YouTube legend, to his underground fight with Boston police officer Sean Gannon, his transition to the world of mixed martial arts, up until his untimely death in 2016 at the age of 42.

Slice always had that star quality, and even back when the sport was gaining more and more notoriety, Slice played his role perfectly — through the ups and the downs. But the more you hear about Slice’s path through his career, the more you understand that he may have been almost a decade ahead of his time.

“I think one of the big takeaways, I think when you watch the episode is he wasn’t this young guy when he started his MMA career, like he was really late to the game,” Healy said. “He had a late, late start, he’s fighting in backyards in Miami, and Bas Rutten talks in the episode about his level of commitment, right? And the guts that it took to get into the sport at a late age. He had no ground game at all, so he had no submissions. When he lost to Sean Gannon in that famous fight in Boston, it was because Gannon was hitting him with guillotine chokes and he didn’t know how to react or how to get out of a choke.

“But he became a student at a late age. When you look at what happened to him, how he was kind of the one of the biggest athletes and was sitting on the couch on the Jimmy Kimmel show and making the late night rounds, and then suddenly everything falls apart at Elite XC. And then the guy goes on The Ultimate Fighter where guys at the beginning go. So he was a guy that wasn’t afraid to really put it out there to put himself out on a limb to try to succeed at something. So I think he would have adapted to all these other opportunities in combat sports really, really well.

“I mean, it was just tragic what happened to the guy.”

One of the most infamous fights of Slice’s career took place at Bellator 149 — just four months before he passed away — taking on fellow street fighter and bitter rival “Dada 5000.” The fight was one of the weirdest in MMA history, but ultimately ended with Slice earning a knockout win in the third round before it was overturned to a no-contest due to a positive steroid test by the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation.

As the show dives deeper in the memorable heavyweight tilt, the sadder it becomes in hindsight.

“[The Dada 5000 fight was] tragic,” Healy said. “I mean, when you watch that fight in the episode and Big John McCarthy, who reffed that fight, he talks about how he almost feels kind of guilty because he was urging Kimbo — you hear him in the [cage] saying, ‘You have to do something. You’ve got to move,’ not realizing the guy had a heart condition.

“It’s like, when you watch that fight, you have no idea what’s going on inside that guy’s body and how sick he was.”

Check out an exclusive clip of Wednesday’s premiere episode below.