Roy Nelson prepares to take over as ace of TUF
Published by Zach Arnold on September 30th, 2009 in Current Events

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Former IFL champion Roy Nelson took some heat for signing up to become a cast member on The Ultimate Fighter this season. Now, his decision looks like it is about to pay off in an enormous way. Roy Nelson and Kimbo Slice are involved in the biggest “Super Fight” in the history of The Ultimate Fighter. There’s no amount of money any promoter outside of UFC could have spent to built up Nelson in this kind of perfect fashion.

Amongst hardcore MMA fans, Roy Nelson is widely respected. Amongst casual fans seeing Nelson for the first time, the reaction is quite different.

“The ignorant fans are like, who is this guy?” said Nelson in an interview last week with Steve Cofield of ESPN Radio in Las Vegas. “I’m assuming that guy just turned on the TV just now.”

Nelson has a completely different look than most heavyweight fighters. He’s not a bodybuilder and his looks are amazing deceiving for his Top 10-quality skill set. He is, in many ways, the antithesis of Brock Lesnar, Shane Carwin, Cain Velasquez, and the newer recruits in UFC’s Heavyweight division. Which is why Nelson makes the perfect foil for Kimbo Slice on The Ultimate Fighter.

For the educated MMA fan, watching Nelson get passed over by both Quinton Jackson and Rashad Evans during the team selection process was stunning. Nelson was picked towards the end of the process as opposed to the beginning. Nelson ended up on Rashad’s team and found himself on a high-level team, whereas Jackson’s team was full of ex-NFL players with size.

“The one thing about you go over Rampage’s whole team I would put Kimbo as one of you know top guys on their team,” exclaimed Big Country Nelson. “So, I mean, just off of the guys he picked mostly NFL players versus like MMA fighters, he basically picked size. If you were taller than him, he picked you. That’s pretty much I think what he really wanted.”

Nelson finds himself in a very unique position on the show. He’s affable and personable, yet can cut a promo when needed. He doesn’t look like the typical UFC musclehead fighter, yet he can compete with the best in the world. When compared to Kimbo Slice, the contrast is so stark that it’s remarkable. And compared to the two head coaches, Nelson sticks out like a sore thumb.

Nelson finds his role gaining big steam on the show and that will play a more critical role now that Quinton Jackson has movie aspirations and is having work-related issues with UFC management.

“Well, it’s either some type of like publicity stunt or he’s just getting paid you know a lot more outside of you know MMA, which you know you can’t be mad at a man you know that’s trying to feed his family even though it’s a lot of money for a lot of kids and stuff,” said Nelson who was trying to rationalize what is going on between Jackson and Dana White. “For the most part you can’t you can’t be mad at him because I mean it works both ways because the UFC wants to make as much money as they want to so you know you just got to do what’s best for you.”

“I think it’s kind of more like a Tito type of ploy, you know like let me try to squeeze as much as I possibly can out of you before you know which you know sometimes is a good thing and sometimes is not a good thing when it comes to Dana White.”

A cursory look at the history of fighters who have opposed Dana White in terms of business relations is not good. Randy Couture put up a fight and quit. Tito Ortiz put up a bluff and came back to Zuffa. The list goes on and on of fighters who get into a war with Dana White and not only lose the financial battle but lose the PR war in a big way.

Nelson, who has been on the verbal end of some shots from both Jackson and Evans, says that Rampage is a fighter who can dish out the talk but can’t take the heat when fired back at him.

“You know that’s totally true because on the show any time he tried to dish it and as soon as you try to give it back he kind of shut up real quick so he’s a disser but he can’t take it. He did that to me on the first day by like calling me fat and I’m like, well do you want to get beat up by the fat guy? And then that was the last I heard of anything about being fat, so it’s kind of all depends how you deal with it. I know how Quinton is when it comes to stuff like that, he’s like a kid, he’s going to push it as far as he possibly can before you break him.”

Given the fact that there are several fighters on this season’s Ultimate Fighter show with past experience, the dynamic has changed in terms of the coaches being able to bully around some of the contestants.

“Yeah, you know I think the biggest thing on this cast was there was a lot more veterans so it’s like you know like when you get bullied by like some of the coaches like you know seen in the past a lot of you know kids, even the other cast members would you know kind of take it but now since it’s more of a veteran and there’s a lot more veterans out there, they’re like, you know I can fight too, you know like let’s go!”

Nelson, who no doubt will take a financial hit in the short-term with a restrictive Ultimate Fighter contract, found his golden ticket when he got booked in a fight against Kimbo Slice. One of the most-viewed fights in UFC history and one of the most anticipated. Nelson is quickly becoming a star before our eyes, thanks to the vaunted UFC promotional machine. While Quinton Jackson is a superstar and hard to replace, Roy Nelson finds himself in a unique position to step up and try to fill the avoid in the future in the UFC by becoming a charismatic Heavyweight star.