Roy Nelson, what has he been up to?

Roy Nelson or "Big Country" is one of my favorite MMA fighters of all time. I just loved his everyman look and style and I think he probably inspired a generation of fat kids to believe that they could do something athletic if they wanted to.

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Roy was a pretty captivating fight too because he had this overhand that if he caught his opponents with it, it was almost always a lights out situation. Unfortunately along the way the people he faced started to figure out that this was basically the only weapon in Roy's arsenal, and all they had to do to beat him was circle away from his rather wild overhand right and beating Nelson was all but guaranteed from that point.

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Roy never seemed to take the fights too seriously and talking trash about him to try to get a rise out of him was a waste of time. He really didn't seem to care. He also wasn't exactly Dana White's best friend and I feel like Dana used him in situations where he was expected to lose, especially during his final days in UFC. Despite all of this Roy remained a crowd favorite and until his losing streak began all those years ago he looked like me just might have what it takes to be world champion. It would be a fluke where he one-punched someone else but in the heavyweight game, that is really all it takes sometimes.

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When Roy moved over to Bellator after UFC either didn't offer him a contract extension of he didn't want one, I was excited because I thought this might be a chance for him to shine over there. Say what you will about UFC, but I don't think that there is ever an argument which promotion has the most skilled fighters. UFC has the best and the others have the rest. Of course there are exceptions but once those exceptions are discovered, they almost always go over to UFC as soon as they can.

Unfortunately for Roy, this perception of lessor talent over at Bellator didn't do a great deal for him. Because he went 1-5. It was quite disappointing actually, because he even lost to people that you would never think he would lose to like Matt Mitrione. After his last defeat in 2020, he simply disappeared for a long time. It would be around 3 years before he would see any MMA action or at least any that anyone ever heard about.

He would re-emerge with Gamebred Bare-knuckle fighting and even though he looks noticeably slower he won visa KO in the first round. In true Big Country fashion, he took a lot of damage leading up to the win, but the dude is just extremely difficult to knock out. Some joke that he doesn't need his brain in order to stay upright because he doesn't use it anyway.

So now this is kind of Roy's thing. Personally I don't really enjoy BK boxing very much because it is a bit too brutal for my liking and it tends to be rather slow. I honestly can't believe that it is a legal and sanctioned sport. I guess we'll have to wait for a few people to die before they shut it down. It certainly can't be good for the contestants, even the ones that win.

He competes in the same promotion again on November 10th, and there are quite a few, 12 actually, ex UFC fighters that are on the card and you might recognize some of them.

For me, I don't know if I will even watch it because like I said, it isn't really appealing to me. I do really like Roy Nelson though and at 46 years of age it is extremely impressive that he is fighting at all. It's gotta be humbling or embarrassing to the younger guys when they get beat by someone older than their Dad.