It's a sad tale all around because Kimbo was, if nothing else, a good man, a doting father and a one-of-a-kind American sporting success story. There was something primal about it all at the beginning, long before he was scooped up and propped up and rang up checks in the burgeoning world of mixed martial arts … despite not being anything resembling a real mixed martial artist. In the beginning it was pure and primitive, and not just because it involved basic human violence, the bare-knuckle brawl.