Following last night’s main event at UFC 130: Rampage vs. Hamill, fans were quick to blame Quinton Jackson for putting on what can only be described as a lackluster main event. But is it really Rampage’s fault?Jackson dominated the fight by using super…
Following last night’s main event at UFC 130: Rampage vs. Hamill, fans were quick to blame Quinton Jackson for putting on what can only be described as a lackluster main event. But is it really Rampage’s fault?
Jackson dominated the fight by using superior boxing and defensive wrestling. As the third round was winding down, Joe Rogan said something like, “I can’t imagine a world in which Rampage didn’t win the first two rounds.”
And he’s right.
Hamill never had a chance.
But that’s also why the fight was so lackluster.
Much like UFC 129’s main event with St-Pierre against Shields, once it became clear that Hamill had almost no way to win, the fight became very boring to watch. There was no suspense, and the only thing we had to look forward to was Hamill getting knocked out.
When that didn’t happen, it was a big letdown.
But it’s not like Rampage wasn’t trying to knock Hamill out, and it’s not like he gassed himself out doing nothing.
He swung for the fences and tired himself out doing so.
Hamill himself is partly to blame for not taking bigger risks, but it’s hard to blame him when he probably just would have been knocked out for his effort.
It’s also hard to blame the UFC for marketing the main event when they had no better option after Edgar and Maynard pulled out.
If you’re one of the fans out there complaining about the main event, you have nobody to blame but yourself.
If you were buying UFC 130 for the main event, you really weren’t thinking properly.
The main event wasn’t the best reason to buy the card.
UFC 130 featured a whole host of fights that looked interesting and competitive on paper.
MMA fighters aren’t fighting just for your entertainment. They fight to win, and if they’re going to lose, they’re still going to try to avoid getting knocked out or injured because injury suspensions cost fighters money, and concussions can lead to a lower quality of life.
In order for MMA to move forward as a sport, the MMA fanbase needs to be one that watches because of the competitive aspects of the sport, not the theatrical ones.
UFC 130 lacked the drama and the grudges surrounding many high-profile UFC events, but it still was an event featuring a ton of high caliber fighters in competitive bouts.
It turns out that some of those fights weren’t all that exciting, but as they say, sometimes these things happen in MMA.
Last night at UFC 130, Roy Nelson got manhandled, wrestled, and physically dominated by Frank Mir.This isn’t the first time Nelson has been manhandled by a bigger and more powerful heavyweight, and if Nelson continues to fight at heavyweight, it won’t …
This isn’t the first time Nelson has been manhandled by a bigger and more powerful heavyweight, and if Nelson continues to fight at heavyweight, it won’t be the last.
It’s time for Roy Nelson to seriously consider a drop down to the 205 pound division.
Despite Nelson’s quick dismissal of the possibility, it would be quite possible for him to make the 205 pound weight limit.
Roy Nelson is Not Too Big For 205
When somebody asks Roy Nelson if he could make 205, he usually responds with something like “yeah, I could make 205 if I cut off my leg,” to try to display how insane he thinks the idea is.
However, if you look at Nelson’s body, it should be quite easy to see that Nelson’s frame isn’t too big for 205 pounds. In fact, he should probably be fighting at 185 pounds like Tim Boetsch.
If you ever see professional fighters in person, you’ll understand what I mean.
In person, most fighters look much larger than their actual weigh in weights. Dominick Cruz, the UFC 135 pound champion, has about the same frame as your average in-shape guy who walks around at 170 pounds.
Georges St-Pierre is a rock solid 190 pounds, but would be over 200 pounds if he wasn’t in such incredible shape.
Guys like Chuck Liddell and Quinton Jackson are hulking human specimens with absurd amounts of muscle.
If Nelson even got into the kind of physical condition that Liddell is in, he’d easily make 205 pounds and could probably make 185 pounds if he took the weight cut seriously like most other MMA fighters do.
If you sawed off the part of Nelson’s gut that hangs over his shorts, you’d probably already have him down to 230 pounds. A good weight cut after that, and he’d easily make the 205 pound limit.
Unfortunately, Nelson is probably to stubborn to actually do so.
Reasons Why Roy Nelson Doesn’t Want To Cut Down To 205 Pounds
In order to make the 205 pound limit, Nelson would be forced to eat in a healthy manner.
That means no more Burger King diet.
It would also mean that he’d have to train a bit harder, and probably seek out some good advice from somebody like Mike Dolce on how to cut weight properly.
Roy Nelson is probably too lazy to do those things.
He’d also probably have to deal with having loose skin as a result from losing all that excess weight.
One real competitive reason Nelson might want to stay at heavyweight is because it’s the weakest division. The fighters simply aren’t as good at heavyweight, and Nelson might have trouble competing with a deeper 205 pound division.
The other big reason Nelson might hesitate is that he might not want to give up his gimick of being the fat guy who can fight. There is a certain appeal to being that guy that sets him apart from other fighters. If Nelson moves to 205, he becomes just another ordinary fighter.
Roy Nelson’s Delusions
Instead of realizing that he’s too fat and needs to slim down, Nelson instead went the other way after the fight, hinting that he needs to get “bigger, faster, stronger.”
But if Nelson gets bigger, he’s certainly not getting faster, and he’s only going to get weaker as he gasses out even earlier into fights.
Aside from that delusion, Nelson also brushed off the loss stating that it was really only wrestling that won Mir the decision and that the striking was even, if not in Nelson’s favor.
Nelson is wrong about that as well, but even if he wasn’t, there’s no getting around the fact that he was out-struck badly by Junior Dos Santos in his last fight, and out-hustled by Mir in this one.
But Isn’t Nelson’s Belly An Advantage
On the TUF reality series, we saw that when Nelson gets on top of somebody, his belly can help pin his opponent down.
But whatever advantage he gains from that position is vastly outweighed by the disadvantage that comes from being slow and out of shape.
Could Nelson Become A Smaller Heavyweight?
Cain Velasquez and Fedor Emelianenko are both small and extremely successful heavyweights.
Fedor Emelianenko has approximately the same frame as Nelson. If Nelson got down to around 225 pounds, he could still fight at heavyweight, and would possibly still have more quickness and mobility than some of the larger plodding heavyweights.
Conclusion
The “Fat Fighter” experiment should be over.
We’ve seen how good of a fighter a fat Roy Nelson is, and while he’s a decent fighter, he’s certainly not a great one.
So if Nelson stays fat, he’ll win some, lose some, and will remembered only as “that fat fighter.”
If Nelson loses some serious weight, he risks losing his fat man gimmick.
Still, losing some serious weight is Nelson’s only chance of being anything but another also-ran in the UFC heavyweight division.
While some MMA fans are always quick to look down upon people who try to enter MMA from boxing, pro-wrestling and other such tangentially related activities, some MMA fans have also been quick to become cheerleaders for the crossover successes of MMA f…
While some MMA fans are always quick to look down upon people who try to enter MMA from boxing, pro-wrestling and other such tangentially related activities, some MMA fans have also been quick to become cheerleaders for the crossover successes of MMA fighters as they try to pursue fame and fortune outside of the cage.
Always looking to broaden the appeal of the sport, Dana White himself has occasionally been quite supportive of fighters endeavoring to parlay their MMA credibility into the world of B-movie stardom.
To date, there have been plenty of fighters who have tested their “acting” skills.
Here is a list of only the most successful attempts of fighters trying their hand at acting.
When Brock Lesnar pulled out of his UFC 131 fight with Junior Dos Santos, he immediately set off a firestorm of speculation about his motives and place in mixed martial arts.Questioning Lesnar’s heart has been a popular pastime for many fans of the UFC…
When Brock Lesnar pulled out of his UFC 131 fight with Junior Dos Santos, he immediately set off a firestorm of speculation about his motives and place in mixed martial arts.
Questioning Lesnar’s heart has been a popular pastime for many fans of the UFC and of MMA because as we all know, “Lesnar isn’t a real fighter.”
Lesnar’s history as a professional “fake wrestler” once again rears its head as people question him and whether his illness isn’t just another phony part of what some MMA fans see as an illegitimate MMA career.
Here’s everything you need to know about Brock Lesnar’s illness and what it says about his career in MMA.
Following last night’s main event at UFC 130: Rampage vs. Hamill, fans were quick to blame Quinton Jackson for putting on what can only be described as a lackluster main event. But is it really Rampage’s fault?