Throughout season ten of SpikeTV’s The Ultimate Fighter, right through “Big Country” Roy Nelson’s (14-4) knockout of Brendan Schaub (3-1) at The Ultimate Fighter 10 Finale in Las Vegas Saturday night, UFC President Dana White paid Nelson distinctly less respect than any of the fighters in the competition.
White said Nelson has “the worst physique in professional sports” and complained about Nelson’s confidence throughout the competition.
But, none of the fighters on TUF 10 who actually had to step into the Octagon versus Nelson made similar critiques. All of Nelson’s opponents dutifully promised to win, of course; and, Schaub even promised to knock Nelson out. But, no one questioned Nelson’s confidence or called him a “fat guy.”
The difference between White and Nelson’s opponents is that White has to promote a phenomenal fat guy while Nelson’s opponents have to fight a phenomenal fat guy. And, if you’re the king of the streets like “Kimbo Slice” Kevin Ferguson (4-1), a Greco-Roman wrestling champion like Justin Wren (8-2), a decorated kickboxer like James McSweeney (4-4), or a former NFL football player like Schaub, after Nelson etches an “L” into your record, you just got beat-up by that same fat guy you were demeaning as just a fat guy.
White has logged a lot of hours changing the image of the UFC from gritty brawler “Tank” David Abbott (10-14) to clean-cut certified überathlete Fighters.com’s second-ranked heavyweight and UFC champion Brock Lesnar (4-1).
Nelson, his buddha belly, and his curly mohawk crash White’s party.
And, in a sense, White is right. Watching the final episode of TUF 10 with a friend who is aware of MMA, but doesn’t consider it much of a sport, I realized how Nelson turns off fans of mainstream team sports where the rules are conceived to ensure the best athlete wins. He was appalled that Nelson had reached the finals of a supposed athletic competition.
“Roy is good,” I protested.
“But, wouldn’t he be better if he were in shape,” my friend asked.
I explained, “He is in shape. Look, he’s training with three former NFL players, doing everything everyone else is doing, and two of those NFL players have had to sit out days of training. Roy never has.”
My friend was skeptical, even hostile towards Nelson based wholly on Nelson’s physique compared to his confidence. My friend was rooting for the clean-cut, former professional football player Schaub after watching just one episode of TUF 10.
But, for MMA purists like you and I, Nelson’s physique and dearth of athletic genetics combined with his deep understanding of fighting, proves that MMA, at it’s heart, is a high-skilled athletic endeavor. Unlike football and unlike action films, fighting is skill-intensive, not based on genetics or looks. It’s a chess game that tests your will to win by ensuring painful results when you make a bad move.
Watching Nelson knockout Schaub was similar to watching third-ranked Frank Mir (12-4) tap out Lesnar at UFC 81 in Las Vegas in 2008. As much as onlookers outside of the sport want MMA to be a bunch of thick-headed bar brawlers trading head shots until someone falls, it’s proven time-and-again that, when athletes from other sports step into MMA, they’re quickly humbled by the volume of skills that they have to study and the intensity of training day-in-and-day-out.
On TUF 10, former Tampay Bay Bucs top draft pick “Big Baby” Marcus Jones (4-2) admitted his training in the NFL was nothing close to the intensity and effort of training to fight.
Nelson has done that training for years while also picking up all of the skills necessary to compete at a high level in MMA. Though spectators ignorant about the sport will look at Nelson and have their misconceptions about MMA confirmed, I look at Nelson and he proves that fighting is as much about skill and heart as genetics. That’s what attracted many core fans to the sport years ago. It’s the promise that, even if you’re not born to succeed, you can work hard, study, and overcome your limitations to become successful anyway.
Nelson wasn’t born a 6′6″, 265- pound muscle-bound giant like Jones. Nelson was born the way you see him today and will kick Jones’s ass with the skills he’s developed through hours of hard work in the gym.
White should spend less time being annoyed with having to now promote Nelson as a certified UFC fighter and devote his effort to promoting Nelson for the symbol of what a high-skilled, heart-testing sport MMA is. And, whenever one of these magazine cover, chiseled athletes wants to call Nelson just a fat guy, White should serve the guy to Nelson in a clamshell box and watch Nelson descend on him like a Burger King Whopper.
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