(Looks like that horse skipped leg day. Photo via Nelson’s twitter.)
On the heels of back-to-back losses to Stipe Miocic and Daniel Cormier, Roy “Big Country” Nelson is in need of a big win if he ever wants to be viewed in a more positive light than “a fucking idiot who couldn’t get a job at Kinkos” by his current employer. Just kidding, Dana White will hate Nelson regardless of how he performs in the octagon. In any case, it looks like Nelson’s bid to become the next executive director of the Nevada State Athletic Commission was about as successful as Mary Carey’s bid to become governor of California, as his next fight is already being lined up.
During last night’s edition of UFC Tonight, Ariel Helwani hinted that a bout between “Big Country” and Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira (a.k.a “Big Nog”) is being targeted for the UFC’s return to Abu Dhabi in May. Here’s how I know this:
It takes a keen investigative eye to be an MMA journalist, it does.
Nogueira has also been struggling in the consistency department as of late, coming off a submission loss to Fabricio Werdum at UFC on FUEL 10 and going win-loss since 2008.
This is normally the point in the article where I’d plea for Big Nog to just walk away from the sport, say he has nothing left to prove, curse the MMA gods for allowing this to happen, etc. But you know what, fuck that. If Nogueira wants to continue fighting until he has to eat through a straw, I say we let him. Sure, he’s 37 going on 60, but he’s an MMA legend dammit, and MMA legends are only truly immortalized if they continue to fight well past the twilight of their career. It’s why Ken Shamrock is as universally admired today as he was ten years ago, why Chuck Liddell *still* has that look in his eyes, and who are we to question where greatness ends and depressing, unnecessary punishment begins? NO-GUEI-RA! NO-GUEI-RA!!