Rutten prepping Kimbo for highest-profile fight of his career to date

Kevin "Kimbo Slice" Ferguson is in for the most high profile fight of his life on Oct. 4 when he and MMA icon Ken Shamrock headline CBS-EliteXC Saturday Night Fights in Florida.

Despite his inexperience -- he has a professional record of just 3-0 -- Kimbo the bout against Shamrock will mark the third time in four bouts that he has been a part of the main event. By contrast, Shamrock has more than 40 bouts to his credit, having headlined in both the Ultimate Fighting Championship and Pride Fighting Championships.

Taking steps forward every time out, Kimbo has enlisted the help of another MMA great in his training ever since he began his transformation from Internet sensation to professional mixed martial artist. That would be former Pancrase and UFC champion Bas Rutten, who has been meticulous in developing Kimbo's skills.

In the fight with Shamrock, Rutten sees the match-up as a classic submission specialist versus striker, and he's conditioning Kimbo accordingly.

"Kimbo has been doing great," Rutten told MMAWeekly.com. "He's been training in the gym and has been doing what he needs to do.

"The gameplan is pretty obvious what is going to happen," he admitted. "Shamrock is going to try to take him down and apply leg locks; or if he sees a choke or an arm bar he'll take that also."

Rutten has faced Shamrock twice in his career, so he knows what "The World's Most Dangerous Man" brings to the table.

"We're preparing (Kimbo) for everything, but of course we are focusing more on the leg locks and takedown defense. Let's face it; we don't want to go to the ground. We want this fight to stay on the feet and see if Kimbo can knock him out."

That would be the ultimate achievement for Kimbo at this point in his career. Shamrock has not been a world-beater of late to be sure -- he is 2-8 in his last 10 bouts -- but having competed on the very first UFC, the Shamrock name carries with it an immense amount of recognition between both the hardcore and casual MMA fan.

EliteXC's Jared Shaw put it quite succinctly when he said, "It's pretty simple. For Kimbo Slice, he wants to become the world's most dangerous man and he wants to become the future EliteXC heavyweight champ. The only way for him to achieve those two things is going through Ken Shamrock on Oct. 4."