Last night (Sat., Feb. 6, 2016), Roy Nelson and Jared Rosholt dueled at UFC Fight Night 82 inside MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. In an awful fight, Nelson took a close decision win. Find out how below!
Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) Heavyweight standouts Roy Nelson and Jared Rosholt collided last night (Feb. 6, 2016) at UFC Fight Night 82 inside MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Nelson has endured a rough go of things recently, losing to many of his division’s top contenders and taking loads of punishment in the process. With this fight being a decent step back in competition, Nelson was hoping to return to his winning ways in violent fashion.
Rosholt, meanwhile, has been making slow, steady progress towards the top of the division. If the stud wrestler was successful here, it would be the biggest win of his career and a possible introduction to the Top 10.
Instead, the MMA community as a whole was forced to endure a terrible fight.
Nelson began the bout with patience, taking the center and pressing his opponent along the fence. Keeping a low stance, Nelson chased his foe around the ring and tried to walk him into some punches.
After basically running around for the first three minutes, Rosholt decided to take advantage of his opponent’s wide open defense and scored with a hard combination. This gave him some confidence, and he was able to land some decent counter strikes throughout the rest of the round.
Overall, it was a tough round to score.
The second round was more of the same, as neither man did anything significant. Rosholt ran around the Octagon, and Nelson did a lot more showing than actually throwing. When the high point of the first three minutes is a Roy Nelson low kick, you know there wasn’t much going on.
Despite the lack of activity, Rosholt’s movement was beginning to tire him out. In the last 90 or so second, he ate a few more punches than normal from his opponent, including one decent overhand right.
Nelson may not have done much, but it was still enough to win him the round.
“Big Country” got a bit more aggressive in the third, looking to capitalize on his opponent’s awkward movement. Despite the slight increase, it was still fairly unbearable to watch, as neither man was able to land anything significant.
If the highlight of the second round was a low kick, the most interesting moment of the final frame came when Nelson defended a deep single takedown in a moment of actual martial arts ability.
But on the whole, it was simply awful. Unbearably, mind-numbingly awful. This was exactly the worst possible result of a Heavyweight fight.
Ultimately, all three judges decided the Nelson’s performance was not quite as bad as Rosholt’s, awarding him the decision victory.
What is there to analyze? Nelson did a nice job avoiding the takedown and walking towards his opponent. Beyond that, he landed a few counter left hooks and spent a lot more of the fighting feinting than throwing.
Unfortunately, that’s what Nelson is known for (besides knocking people out). He’s a jiu-jitsu black belt that doesn’t every use it. He apparently has devastating low kicks but only threw three of them across 15 minutes.
It’s both frustrating and boring.
Rosholt’s performance was similarly ugly, as he appeared terrified from the get-go of being knocked out. While simply trading with Nelson wouldn’t be a smart idea, there was clearly a middle ground between brawling with Nelson and simply running from exchanges.
For about 60 seconds in the first round, Rosholt found that blend. Then, he got a little tired, ate some shots, and abandoned it completely.
This was Rosholt’s big chance to step up, and he came up short in the worst fashion possibly. It’s already difficult to draw interest towards his fights, but that’s only going to get more difficult if he keep performing like this.
Last night, Roy Nelson edged past Jared Rosholt in a truly tepid affair. Where does “Big Country” go from here?
For complete UFC Fight Night 82: “Hendricks vs Thompson” results and play-by-play, click HERE!