If you don't know who Roy Nelson is just know that he is a bit of the "working man's hero" in MMA. His physique was never impressive. He looked like a guy who pounded a couple of double cheeseburgers and a 6 pack of bud just before his fights. He wasn't much of a talker or a hustler and was kind of an all around good guy including setting up charities for kids when his winnings were getting into the millions. He was on a rise to the top of the only division that he possibly could have maintained weight in, the heavyweight division, and unfortunately the brakes just got checked and he wasn't the same kind of fighter anymore. Known for being almost impossible to KO, this guy would take so much damage during fights and just refused to get knocked down. It also helped that he had a haymaker that put many a fighter into dreamland if he were to connect with it.
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If anyone ever got caught by one of these wild rights that he would throw regularly, they almost always went down. We saw this happen to guys that looked like the worked out 4 times a day and had abs of steel. It was quite refreshing for the common man to see someone who looks like their alcoholic uncle, rise nearly to the top of the heavyweight division. He was loved by all.... well, except for Dana White who seemed to really dislike the guy and would regularly criticize him in interviews.
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It was just so funny to see these guys who look like action figure models, get completely worked by a guy that looks like he probably chooses the least dirty T-shirt to wear when he wakes up in the morning - ok, lets be honest.. the afternoon.
I loved Roy Nelson and was quite disappointed to see him fall from form. At one point in time he faced Daniel Cormier and went the distance of 3 rounds back in 2013. DC is considered one of the best fighters that the UFC has ever had. Roy lost that fight on points but later Cormier would say that it is "basically impossible to knock the guy out." That all changed when he faced Mark Hunt, who is also a giant kind of fat looking guy that was a crowd favorite.
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Hunt was a guy with a physique that looked obtainable by most overweight dude standards as well but he was the first person to EVER KO "Big Country" Roy Nelson. From that point forward Roy's career was on a downward trajectory in the UFC and his next 6 fights over the next nearly 3 years he managed to win only 2 of them. He remained a crowd favorite but he just wasn't viable as a contender anymore and Dana sent him out to pasture.
He has done a number of things since then including perform rather poorly in Bellator but his name still draws people in despite the fact that he hasn't done anything major in a while.
Jorge Masvidal is the promoter of Gamebred Bareknuckle MMA and I guess he knows how to get people interested because if it wasn't for these names, I probably wouldn't pay any attention to this.
In the upcoming months we are going to have a tournament of sorts for the heavyweight championship in Gamebred. Junior Dos Santos and Fabricio Werdum - which are two names that MMA fans will almost certainly recognize, will face off in round one of the title tournament. The winner of that will face whoever wins between Alan Belcher and Roy Nelson, which is slated for October 28th. The eventual title fight will take place in January of next year.
I think I can speak for everyone when I say that I seriously hope that Nelson can defeat whoever Alan Belcher is. I am willing to bet that the promotion would really like to see that as well since Nelson still has a huge draw in the world of MMA. It remains to be seen if anyone will actually tune in to see these things and I don't even know how to watch them live.
Bareknuckle is a mixed bag as far as a sport is concerned. You might like the idea of people getting completely worked by a no gloves contest but it is actually a bit too brutal not just for the faces of the people getting hit, but also the hands of the people involved. Let's just say there is a reason why most MMA sports incorporate gloves of some sort. Keep your ears open about this event because round 1 with Dos Santos and Werdum takes place this Friday, and the details are available here if you are interested