Dana White has believed for a long time that Roy “Big Country” Nelson would be an absolute force if he were able to get his weight down to 205. But at UFC 146, Nelson showed his boss that he doesn’t need to cut weight to win fights.
The president of the UFC voiced his displeasure with Nelson once again when he said this, as per MMAweekly.com:
“I’m cool with him; I like him. Listen, he’s a tough guy with a ton of heart. He goes in there and he gives it his everything. My thing is I’ve always said to him, I’d love to see you take this thing seriously and rip off some weight,” said White.
“When you’ve got a chin like that and a heart like that, you can’t deny the guy’s got a great chin, a ton of heart and he can knock people out. If he really could get to 205, he’d be a force at 205. He’d be a scary dude. He’s got great wrestling, awesome submissions, great chin, a ton of heart and has knockout power.
Nelson must have listened to White’s “I’d love to see you take this thing seriously…” comment and decided he was going to take his frustrations out on his opponent, Dave “Pee-Wee” Herman.
Nelson and Herman both proceeded with caution in the first round, feeling each other out as they looked for a weak point in one another’s defenses. Unfortunately for Herman, “Big Country” found an opening first and laid the smack down on “Pee-Wee” in the form of an overhand right that immediately dropped him to the canvas.
White’s comments must have hit a nerve with Nelson, as he came into this fight looking like he was in great shape. It wasn’t the overly flabby, jiggly Nelson that we’re accustomed to seeing, but rather the semi-tight, relatively skinny Nelson.
I can just imagine the following Dana White quote playing on repeat in Nelson’s headphones as he trained for this fight:
“Who knows what Roy Nelson could really achieve if he applied himself.”
Talk about a zinger. That one will cut you deep even if you say you don’t care about it.
Nelson has came out and put on quality performances in his last three fights. He scored a TKO over Mirko Filipovic, then suffered a unanimous decision loss to Fabricio Werdum (the fight won Fight of the Night), followed by his knockout of Herman, which was awarded Knockout of the Night at UFC 146.
The UFC now has an interesting dilemma on their hands. We might get to see Nelson fight against Stefan Struve, which will surely be a mind-blowing fight. The two fighters weigh about the same, but Struve is nearly a foot taller, which will give Nelson a problem when it comes to landing his knockout punches while the two are on their feet.
Nelson knocked Struve out less than 40 seconds into the first round of their fight in March of 2010, but Struve is a much different fighter now.
White is right to say that Nelson would be a force at 205 pounds, but I don’t believe that it’s fair to say that he doesn’t take what he does seriously.
You don’t win 17 of 24 fights if you think your job is a joke. And you certainly don’t have the power to come out of the gate, throw one punch and knock out your opponent unless you’ve trained enough to do so.
Nelson has had a rough go at it over the course of his last five fights, losing three of them. Don’t forget that he went the distance in all three, though, losing to Junior dos Santos, Frank Mir and Werdum.
Not many fighters can say that they’ve gone the distance with all three of those guys. Nelson may not look to be in top physical shape, but he certainly is conditioned enough to go three rounds with three of the best heavyweight fighters in the world.
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