Former IFL heavyweight champ, and season ten winner of “The Ultimate Fighter”, UFC fighter Roy ‘Big Country’ Nelson (15-6) has hit a small bump in the road, coming off of back-to-back unanimous losses to Junior dos Santos and Frank Mir.
After his rise from “TUF” 10, to culminating with his No. 1 contender loss to Dos Santos, ‘Big Country’ faces the prospect of losing three straight in the UFC.
His next Octagon appearance is set for the end of this month, Oct. 29, when he meets Mirko ‘Cro Cop’ Filipovic at the UFC 137 event in Las Vegas.
Speaking to MMAMania.com, Nelson tells them that after “standing” against all of his opponents in the UFC, he plans on going back to his Jiu-Jitsu roots by taking the fight to the ground against his Croatian opponent.
(MMAmania.com): Did you kind of see that as people almost taking you for granted when they got on you after your last fight with Mir?
Roy Nelson: No, not really. Everybody’s always got to criticize something. I already knew the reason why I was that way in that fight (the walking pneumonia). I gave all I got. As long as you give 100 percent, I don’t care who it is. Like, I know Ben Rothwell ran out of gas but at least he got up and kept going forward. As long as you give 100 percent, that’s all that matters. It’s just when a guy lays there and doesn’t try, that’s when you should get mad as a fan.
(MMAmania.com): I know that this is the last fight on Mirko Cro Cop’s contract. Is it in the back of your head that he might have nothing to lose, that he might try something different, try something crazy?
Roy Nelson: You know what? Anything is possible. The one thing you’ve got to remember, it doesn’t matter if you’ve got one fight on your contract or 12 fights on your contract. You never know how long you’ll actually be in the UFC. It doesn’t, that’s never a factor. I think as an athlete, a lot of people just go out there and they just want to win. As long as he wants to win, that’s the thing that scares you about any athlete, the challenges of the other guy that wants to be better than they are and you just know you didn’t bring your A-Game and he always brings his A-Game.
(MMAmania.com): Do you feel confident standing with him? I know he’s got that aura of being an amazing kickboxer, but all your last wins have been knockouts.
Roy Nelson: I feel standing, like I think I’ve stood up with some of the best heavyweights in the world. I stood up with Junior [dos Santos] so like, I think I might regress for this fight and go back to my roots, go back to my first five or six wins were all submissions. Maybe I’ll regress in the chain of being an MMA fighter.