It looks like TV viewers will see a few different sides of Kimbo Slice on Season 10 of "The Ultimate Fighter."
"He's a nice guy," said Marcus Jones, a former NFL defensive lineman who joined Slice and 14 other heavyweights on the reality TV show.
"He's actually a really good cook," added Demico Rogers, another cast member.
"Kimbo's an interesting individual," said six-foot-10 UFC veteran Wes Sims.
There's a sensitive side to the musclebound former Internet street fighting sensation. Early on this season, when one of the super-sized heavyweights is doubled over in distress after a gruelling workout, it's Slice who is bent over with him, making sure he is OK.
But fight fans want to know one thing about Kimbo when Season 10 kicks off Wednesday (Spike TV, 10 p.m. ET and Rogers Sportsnet, 11 p.m. ET)
"I know for a fact . . . (Kimbo) is definitely a fighter," said UFC president Dana White. "The question is he a mixed martial artist?"
The 35-year-old Slice, whose real name is Kevin Ferguson, faces some big opposition on the mixed martial arts talent hunt show.
Roy (Big Country) Nelson is a former IFL champion. Sims, Mike Wessel and Scott Junk already have UFC experience. James McSweeney is a former world kickboxing champ. And there's plenty of size courtesy of former NFLers Jones (six foot six and 260 pounds), Wes Shivers (6-7 and 285), Brendan Schaub (6-4 and 240) and Matt Mitrione (6-3 and 275).
Slice's numbers are small in comparison -- six foot one and 235 pounds. But his arms are like pythons, squeezed into a T-shirt bulging in muscle. Throw in a mountain-man beard and a mean scowl and the menacing Slice is underwear-changing scary.
Don't judge a book by its cover, however.
"He was really level-headed, down to earth and he had lot of interesting topics to talk about," said Rogers.
"He's a really good guy," he added.
Slice ran up a 3-0 MMA record against questionable opposition for the now-defunct EliteXC. Bo Cantrell lasted 19 seconds and the aging Tank Abbott 43 seconds. James Thompson made it to the third round, exposing Slice's fish-out-of-water ground game, before losing by TKO.
And the Slice bubble burst when Seth Petruzelli, a light-heavyweight who was a late injury replacement, knocked him out in just 14 seconds in October 2008.
White wasted few chances to slag Slice, saying he couldn't even win "The Ultimate Fighter." In a surprising move, the two eventually got together and Slice got his chance to show White wrong.
Whether he wins or not -- and the odds are slim given his limited game -- White should get a bumper audience as fight fans tune in to watch how Slice fares.
Filming wrapped up in early July and Slice, like all the other cast members, isn't allowed to say what went on. But talk to him about the show and the conversation is more about family than fighting, how there was a target on his back coming in and how most people have a warped perception of him.
"Friends and family who know me know that I'm the same guy on the show as I am off the show," Slice told The Canadian Press. "The viewers who don't know me, that's one thing they're going to find out -- that I'm a family man who lives by the respect creed. I'm the same person on and off the show."
Slice knows it will be hard to escape his street fighter image.
"It's brutal, it's very hardcore and it's an extreme extreme sport. And now we're talking about street fighting, which is 10 times the difference between that and regular professional fighting. And coming from a street fighting background, people would have a tendency to kind of misjudge me and misread me. And that's to be expected, they didn't know nothing about me.
"They just saw this big black dude just smashing everybody on the (You)tube. So I can kind of understand why they would feel or think that way. But the show's a different side of that, a different side of me. The show will let everyone know 'Oh this guy did what he had to do because this guy was taking care of his family. And he's still doing it.' I'm hoping a lot of America and out of the country will be able to just relate to the sacrifices and the commitment that I had to go through just to survive."
Slice has three boys and three girls.
"My oldest is 17, my youngest is three. And they all live with me and I take care of them all. And I've been doing it ever since they were born," he says proudly.
Slice aside, Season 10 promised sparks between rival coaches Quinton (Rampage) Jackson and Rashad Evans. The two former light-heavyweight champions bicker right from the get-go.
"I got to work with both of them," Rogers said. "They're completely different guys.
"I feel like Rashad's still kind of on the upswing of his career, still has some stuff to prove, he's still really working hard. And Rampage is kind of levelling out. I think Rampage kind of feels like Rashad's disrespectful, he's not respecting his elders, if you will. But they're both really good guys, they're just very different and there's a lot of fireworks between them."
Said Shivers: "You've got two personalities. Rashad's a little more laidback. He gets fired up. Rampage, on the other hand, doesn't have a serious bone in his body."
While cast members knew what awaited them, some still found it difficult spending six weeks cooped up in a house without access to the outside world other than to train and fight.
"Mentally it was overwhelming," said Jones, a former first round draft pick of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. "Not much to do. You can only walk out in the backyard so many times. It was stressful."
"It's crazy as hell," said Shivers.
The 16 fighters squared off until only two were left. The finalists will meet in a live event after the show has aired to decide who wins a contract to fight in the UFC.
This season is the first since Season 2 -- when Evans, fighting above his weight class, won -- to feature heavyweights.
Be warned. The first episode is not for the faint of heart.
