The Ultimate Fighter 10 – Episode 9 Recap and Discussion
Former IFL champ Roy Nelson advanced to the semifinals of The Ultimate Fighter 10 on Wednesday with a majority decision victory over Team Rashad teammate Justin Wren.
Wren appeared to have the upper hand in the quarterfinals matchup after landing the majority of the punches in the opening round, but Nelson bounced back in the second, connecting with shots after Wren gassed.
Though the fight appeared likely to head to a third and decisive round, the judges handed down a decision after just two frames, declaring Nelson the winner by majority decision with scores of 20-18, 19-19, and 20-18.
Next week on The Ultimate Fighter 10, Team Rashad’s Brendan Schaub and Jon Madsen meet in the second quarterfinals matchup, while Matt Mitrione continues to suffer from concussion-like symptoms and could be forced to drop out of the competition.
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Tags: Justin Wren, Roy Nelson
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i hope Roy gets the W, i like his persona. (even though he is kind of anti social)
Wren is a good fighter but if it goes to the floor, Roy should win it.
he is a wrestler so sooner or later he will go for a take down. i think Roy has an advantage on the stand up department too.
Lex, I must disagree. I think if it’s a stand and bang fight, then Roy wins. If it goes to the floor, Wren wins. He’s supposed to be a beast on the ground. Roy has definitely got an experience factor going for him, but so did Wes Sims. I think they both weigh in around 260, so no big advantage there. Maybe I just think Roy has been an arrogant tool this season and I would like to see him beat. We’ll see. Soon.
Wow, we were both wrong! Opposite actually.
Roy Nelson shouldn’t even be on this show in my opinion. He is far too experienced and too good a fighter, compared to the rest of these guys. Honestly, it’s not really even fair to have him in this competition.
Sure Dana and everyone else can make fun of his weight, belly and his performance in his first fight, but bottom-line is that he did what he had to do to win the fight vs Kimbo. For a fat guy, his cardio is better than most of the former pro athletes on this show, he’s got a hard chin, has okay stand-up and a good ground game. Most importantly he has the experience and comes into every fight with a good game plan that will get him the win.
I’ve said it since the start of the show, that this is Big Country’s tournament to lose…. and I don’t see him losing to any of these other fighters. Roy Nelson will make the finale and will win the six figure contract.
My 2 cents.
I’m really not feeling the judging.
definatly thought there would have been a third round but as the fight progressed big country did look better then wren so im not overly pissed off
Second round definately went to Nelson, but first definately went to Wren (unless you consider the clinch against the cage to be on par with a takedown).
Should have gone to a 3rd round imho. Wouldn’t have mattered though as Wren would not have won if it did go one more.
Wow, Dana really hates Roy Nelson. But on that note, at least Roy isn’t gassing after one round like over 50% of the fighters on this show. The conditioning of these guys is just awful.
i agree- they should have gone one more round. wren might have gotten second wind
IMO roy nelson’s stand up isnt that great. if a guy can avoid a clinch (not easy, i know), he shpould have no problem with nelson’s game.
but i give him credit for conditioning!
more like 90%
What a car wreck this season is…I know there’s nothing I’m going to want to see, but I can’t help watching…blah.
This was a decent fight, best of the season so far. Should have gotten the build up that last weeks got.
Agreed, but do you think it should of went to a third round? I don’t think so.
Real reason Dana White doesn’t like Roy Nelson, marketability. Every other season Dana encourages people to slowly pick it up and stay healthy. When it comes to Roy, it’s about making it exciting? Come on.
Close fight though, but should have gone to round three. Probably the same judges that watch the Machida/Shogun fight.
I think Roy’s attitude is part of why Dana doesn’t like him, but marketability is a big part of it, for sure.
You are right 100% on the attitude. but you can’t blame the guy. He is more accomplished than a lot of UFC heavyweights on the roster. You also got to give him props for not kissing ass too. I’m not sure if you watched the after show for the quarter final picks, but to Roy;s defence a lot of things were edited. He said that he would fight anyone, and Dana asked him what he thought he could do to each guy. So he listed what he would do. Instead it was edited so that he was offering these opinions without being asked.
You never know with TUF. 6 weeks being edited to 12 hours can pretty much manipulate a ton of things. Look at the marketability of Kimbo. It seems they are working hard to make him look like a nice guy. I’m falling for it, but is it just another used care salesman technique? I guess we’ll find out.
Really though, what has Roy Nelson accomplished?
He’s a BJJ black belt under Renzo Gracie, competed at ADCC, beat Frank Mir in a grappling tournament, was the IFL heavyweight champion, should have been given the win over Jeff Monson at March Badness, but those judges were terrible. Had Arlovski in a dangerous position before a bad stand up.
He’s accomplished more than the rest of TUF cast this season, with the exception of maybe, Wes Simms.
Roy won the IFL championship and defended in on 2 separate occasions. He has fought former UFC notables Andrei Arlovski, Ben Rothwell and Jeff Monson, going the distance in 2 of these fights. Which proves he can at least hang with real heavyweights. He can go three rounds without keeling over and dieing like the rest of the guys on this show.
Not too bad for a guy that hasn’t really ever trained with a camp and does all his own promoting and managerial work too boot. Give this guy a real training camp and take away the stresses of doing all the paper work, shed a few excess pounds and I think he has plenty of potential.
No he is not a top heavyweight by any means but he has at least proven he can hold his own and belongs in the same ring/octagon with the big boys. I cannot say that about the rest of TUF 10 cast.
I was meaning MMA, but as usual I get your point Justin.
However, he beat what I would call “cans” to get the IFL belt and the Monson loss, though I didn’t see, still goes down in the record books as a loss.
Everyone’s right about the attitude thing though. Figs pointed out a good point about Dana’s encouraging others while being vocal about his dislike for Nelson.
He accomplished being Roy Nelson, not shadow anything being said.
He also has a Split decision loss to Rothwell and obviously that wouldn’t help anyones cause after the IFL champ was mauled in his UFC debut. So IFL(not taking anything away from anyone) just isn’t in the same ballpark.
Marketibility is less a factor because ironically because his look he may be MORE marketible than some guys.
A large part is his attitude. Roy has always been cocky even before he had accomplished much. If you ever say any early interviews with him(IFL days), he was very cocky then. Even his comments after the fight would rub anyone wrong. I mean who says that when just about everyone there expected a third round. Runing your mouth to promote is one thing but Roy’s attitude isn’t even about promotion, it’s just about him. I thought this about him before the show and the show isn’t doing anything to change it!
In my eyes, that fight should have seen a third round. Wren won the first, Nelson won the second. I don’t think Wren had anything for Nelson if they did go to a third, but nevertheless, there should have been a third.
I thought this was the best fight so far this season.
I’m not convinced Kimbo is fighting again, and besides we all (think we) know that Kimbo is fighting Alexander at the finale anyways, so quit teasing it. But, it would be nice to see him fight again, I guess.
“In my eyes, that fight should have seen a third round. Wren won the first, Nelson won the second. I don’t think Wren had anything for Nelson if they did go to a third, but nevertheless, there should have been a third.”
my thoughts exactly justin
Thanks Justin, FOR kind of backing me up. Ufcdaily days.
Cheers.
I find it hard to believe anyone truly wants to see Nelson fight. It’s painful to watch.
I am looking forward to the day Nelson is no longer straining the credibility of the UFC.
If you think Big Country is straining the credibility of the UFC, what do you think about the rest of TUF cast this season? I’m curious.
can’t disagree with that comment totally however just from a marketing/broadcast/image point of view the guy is definitely no one would want to market to the public.
used to be in advertising mass media for 10+ years.
As ugly as it was, I think Big Country’s punches were the most effective. If it would have went to a third round, Wren wouldn’t have seen the end of the round.
if nelson doesn’t end up winning this thing, judging by dana’s comments, he’ll be cut for sure….1 fight on the finale and thats all for big country
I think he would have to lose after TUF before he got cut, though.
I think if he wins his post-TUF fight by a boring dec or something like his first win he’ll be cut
The way that the UFC is trying to control the fighter market right now (ie. picking up Baroni and Buentello) that’s doubtful. They also haven’t made a recent habit of cutting guys that win. The only time they let guys go off of a win is if their contract is up and they ask for “too much” money, like Hendo.
Decent enough fight, marred by yet another example of poor scoring by the judges. How any competent offical scores the first round for Nelson is a mystery to me, but ultimately [no pun intended] it makes little difference.
Whoever wins this season of TUF won’t last a day longer than their contract, based on what I’m seeing in the cage. Roy Nelson is too aggravating for words, and from what I’ve seen and read, he’s making a p!ss-poor impression on Dana White, so even if he wins in the short-term, he’s going to lose in the long term.
This time next year Strikeforce will be marketing Roy Nelson [if he doesn't win TUF] versus either Bobby Lashley or Herschel Walker, and Dana will be laughing his a$$ off.
And the finest TUF 10 fighter analysis I’ve seen to date was when Kimbo Slice described Justin Wren as just some big kid who’s mom keeps catching him a$$-out from the fridge, rocking a mouthful of donut…
i dont think that theres any way that nelson took the 1st round.. at least one of them had it right.. bad scoring again IMO
If this season won’t be remembered for the fights (and it won’t…), maybe we could remember it for the relative maturity shown by the guys in the house (except maybe Sims). It’s kind of nice and refreshing to see these guys (for the most part) getting along and having a good time without being perpetually piss drunk and being obnoxious (except Sims). And the little thirty second clips of just random shenanigans are funny and enjoyable.
I agree with you bsbiz, but I find Wes Sims as a nice comic relief. If it weren’t for him and Rampage this season would be boring as hell.
I thought the clip of Roy pretending to do pull ups was hilarious.
The clip of Roy pretending to do pull ups was pretty funny.
Really good point about this season of TUF.
A lot of us, me included, are screaming about how this “should be the LAST season of a HW TUF ever!”, but thankfully the “reality” portion of this reality MMA show has been relatively painless, and in some cases damned funny…
Nothing to add that hasn’t already been said. One of the better fights of the season so far. Needed a third round. Roy would have won handily and decisively in the third because Wren was clearly gassed.
Kimbo should not be allowed to be the alternate in any condition except if Marcus is unable to fight.
Kimbo had one of (if not THE) worst performances. He got totally outclassed and will continue to be for a long time by and good/decent ground fighter. He never really had Roy in any trouble and lost to the smallest rabbit punches ever. If someone gets hurt/can’t fight from Rashads team, then his one and only guy sitting out should fill that spot, not Kimbo.
I agree. Completely. If it’s one of Rashad’s team that can’t fight, one of Rashad’s team should replace him.
Whoever can’t go, the person they beat should be brought back in, so if Mitrione can’t go, it should be Junk.
So you would put the guy defeated in less than a minute? Because that’s the only guy left that’s on Rashad’s team.
In most tournemant style competetions the person who lost to the injured party is advanced (Kohsaka anyone?) in the place of injured person. So in this case Junk.
However, if you have seen Brendan Schaub’s blog( http://mmajunkie.com/news/16654/brendan-schaubs-blog-for-the-ultimate-fighter-10-episode-no-7.mma ) you know Junk suffered a torn retina and an achilles tendon injury(apparently during warm-ups) from the Mitrone fight. So honestly, it’s wide open for anybody to get in.
You’re forgetting one important fact here.
The UFC, and by extension TUF, are Dana White’s personal fight club. He thinks there is money to be made with Kimbo Slice, which is why he’s signed him to face Houston Alexander post-TUF.
Also, if there is a “convenient” injury, believe that Kimbo Slice will be the replacement fighter, and not Scott Junk or any other TUF contestant…
you’re forgetting something too my friend…Kimbo may not be a choice but a lack of options…
i feel bad for rampage a little bit.
Well I just got an opportunity to see this match and it most surely should have gone to a 3rd round, yet it is what it is…. I do believe that Roy is just trying to get through this thing with as little damage as possible… The next fight should be good atleast the preview was