To Be or Not To Be: The Phillipe Nover Question
Published by Jim Genia on February 6th, 2010 in Current Events

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To be or not to be? That is the question that looms above Phillipe Nover and his UFC career, a question that will likely be answered when he enters the cage at UFC 109 to face Rob Emerson. Heralded by Dana White as the next Georges St. Pierre and Anderson Silva for his dominant performances in the Octagon during the TUF 8 season, the Brooklyn-born registered nurse of Filipino decent seemed to have his future in a tight rear naked choke. In fact, he was the favorite going into the live finale. But fellow TUF finalist Efrain Escudero had an answer for Nover’s heavy hands and solid jiu-jitsu – his wrestling – and when the third and final round of their scrap ended, Escudero was the recipient of both a unanimous decision and the moniker “The Ultimate Fighter”. Nover, who’d quit his job at Coney Island Hospital to train full time, was sent back to the drawing board. For one reason or another, he hasn’t won a fight since.

The Ultimate Fighter reality show wasn’t even a raw concept yet when Nover popped his MMA competition cherry. The year was 2003, the promotion was Kipp Kollar’s Reality Fighting, and the venue was the gymnasium of Marist High School in Bayonne, New Jersey. Back then, the Filipino was more of a Jeet Kune Do stylist, an intense rookie employing a mishmash of striking skills to go with his newly-acquired Rodrigo Gracie-taught submissions. But he hit hard, and wasted no time doing it, cracking opponent Ron Stallings in the chops before finishing the stunned fighter with a guillotine.

After that, Nover returned to action only once a year, scoring a knockout here and sinking a choke there, all the while juggling his nursing pursuits with his training. Yet with each subsequent win, Nover’s reputation as a top competitor simmered on the stovetop of Northeast MMA, until Ring of Combat’s Tournament of Champions came along and brought his it all to a violent and steaming boil. It was there where he took out a fighter from Spain and kimura’d a dangerous wrestler from the Jersey Shore, and though Nover was forced to miss the final round of the eight-man tournament due to a shoulder injury sustained in training, he’d more than made his mark. His next bout would be aired on SpikeTV.

Losing to Escudero forced Nover to return to nursing, but he was game and eager when he stepped into the Octagon to take on Kyle Bradley at UFC 98 six months later. Unfortunately, a premature and controversial stoppage marred that outing, the result of him getting dropped with punches and referee Yves Lavigne erroneously thinking he was done. Then came UFC Fight Night 19, where just hours before his match with Sam Stout, Nover fainted in the locker room – a turn of events that prompted the athletic commission to call the bout off.

Now, medically cleared to compete, Nover gets to face Emerson on Saturday night. To say he’s in desperate need of a win is putting it mildly. Nover’s got his back to the figurative wall. To be or not be? For Nover, and the fans he made rising up through the Northeast ranks as well as from kicking ass on TUF, that is the Shakespearian question.