His name has been known to the majority of hardcore fans for several years now, but Roy “Big Country” Nelson did not truly emerge on the mainstream MMA scene until he won the tenth season of The Ultimate Fighter last month, defeating Kimbo Slice on the show and following that up with a first-round knockout of previously-unbeaten prospect Brendan Schaub in the live finale in December. Although he was unable to say whether or not a rumored March showdown with rising heavyweight prospect Stefan Struve was in the cards when reached for comment, Nelson maintained that he would be confident facing anyone in the UFC’s heavyweight division from this point forward.
Tapology’s Steven Kelliher recently caught up with Nelson in order to get his thoughts on his most recent fight, his beginnings in MMA and his current training habits, as well as his thoughts on taking on the upper echelon of the UFC’s heavyweight division going forward.
Tapology: Since you were able to both live the experience of being on The Ultimate Fighter as well as watching the show after the fact, do you think the final product captured the true essence of the show or not?
Nelson: What you saw is to a certain degree one side of the stories that were told, but there was a lot that wasn’t shown, so I can’t wait until they have the DVD set because there was so much stuff that was missed, but it was accurate to a certain degree.
Tapology: Dana White was critical of your performances on the show. Did that serve as extra motivation for your fight with Brendan Schaub in the TUF 10 Finale or did it not really factor in?
Nelson: Dana is really good at what he does, but as far as fueling the fire, that’s not what I do. I fight for the sport and just to go out there and see who the better fighter is.
Tapology: How did you feel about the fight against Schaub overall?
Nelson: I thought it was a good fight. Brendan comes from a great camp—Greg Jackson’s camp—so I knew I would have my hands full. For myself, it was all about executing the game plan, which was first to see how easy the takedown might be if I needed to go there if I was ever hurt, so that was something I did early on and after that I was comfortable with my hands, so I hit him with a few flush shots that fell short, so I stepped in on the last one and that was the end of the fight.
Tapology: Can you talk a bit about your background in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu because you are obviously very comfortable on the ground? Is that how you got into MMA to begin with?
Nelson: When I first started I wanted to be a Kung-Fu, B-movie martial artist and then it just all fell into place. I was pretty good at Jiu-Jitsu, and I actually started training a few guys—a couple of them were UFC fighters—and it really doesn’t pay trainers to actually train guys so that’s how I decided to fight. Back in the day there was no amateur MMA, so you would just go out and grapple to see who you could beat, so I kind of made a name for myself grappling and from there that’s what catapulted me into more MMA stuff.
Anybody that’s smart in fighting knows that if you can dictate where the fight goes, you’re going to dictate where the fight is won, so it’s one of the things I try to strive for to be a better fighter. I use my hands and go to the ground if I need to.
Tapology: Now that you’re in the UFC, have you changed anything in your training routine?
Nelson: Not really. Don’t fix something if it’s not broken yet. Whenever I’ve lost, I’ve always become a better fighter after those losses, so all I do is try to surround myself with people that care about me and that want what’s best for me. I always joke and say that I train out of my house, so now that I’m moving on up I’m moving to the garage now. I belong to the Roy Nelson camp right now. I do move around and get good sparring in with guys like Forrest Griffin and Frank Mir.
Tapology: Would you feel confident going in against the upper echelon of the UFC’s heavyweight division at this point in time?
Nelson: I feel that I can fight anybody in the UFC. In my sixth fight I was supposed to fight Cain Velasquez, and I think “Crazy” Bob [Cook] didn’t want him to fight me so I fought someone else instead. Some of my fights have been crossed with big names, but it’s not that I don’t want to fight them, it’s that they don’t want to fight me. I think I can fight with the best in the world and that’s the reason why I fight.
Tapology: It was recently announced that you could be fighting Stefan Struve at UFC Fight Night 21 in March. Can you confirm that?
Nelson: I don’t know. All I can say is that I’ve been told I am either fighting in March or April. I think I am game for any of the heavyweights out there, though, especially guys like Stefan Struve. He’s probably one of the better guys and his only loss is to Dos Santos, but you could put me up against Frank Mir or Brock Lesnar next week and I would still have the same confidence.
Tapology: Thanks for the time Roy.
Nelson: Thank you.
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