Junior dos Santos vs. Roy Nelson UFC 117 Winner Earns Heavyweight Title Shot
The winner of the UFC 117 meeting between heavyweight contenders Junior dos Santos and Roy Nelson will earn a title shot against the winner of the upcoming matchup between heavyweight champ Brock Lesnar and challenger Cain Velasquez, which is being targeted to headline September’s UFC 119.
“You’re going to see Cain and Brock fight,” UFC President Dana White said following Saturday’s UFC 116. “Then coming up, dos Santos is going to fight ‘Big Country,’ and the winner of that fight will get the next shot.”
Dos Santos (11-1) won his fifth-straight UFC bout with a first-round knockout of Gabriel Gonzaga at March’s UFC on Versus 1, while The Ultimate Fighter 10 winner Nelson (15-4) scored a 39-second TKO of Stefan Sturuve at UFC Fight Night 21 in March for his second-straight win.
UFC 117, which takes place on August 7 in Oakland, California, is headlined by middleweight champ Anderson Silva vs. Chael Sonnen, and also features welterweight contenders Thiago Alves vs. Jon Fitch and Matt Hughes vs. Ricardo Almeida.
For the latest UFC 117 news and UFC rumors stay tuned to MMAFrenzy.com.
Pictured: Junior dos Santos
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ufc 117 is a stacked card!
LOL thats an understatement.
I knew my favorite Heavyweight JDS would make it to the top!!! and after he knocks out Roy Nelson he will get a title shot. Lets go JDS!!!
There are two things I’m hoping we’ll see at UFC 117:
1-Someone really give Anderson Silva a fight (I mean really, who has?)I’d like to see what this guy can REALLY do when challenged. It’s like having a car that goes 300 MPH but you only have to do 150 to beat everyone you race.
2-Junior destroying Big Country. Roy Nelson sucks. I mean, he’d kick MY a$$ I’m sure, but that doesn’t count. Actually though, Lesnar/Nelson wouldn’t be too bad. At least that would finally be someone who could bench-press Roy Nelson off their chest. You gotta do more than lay on people.
i guess you missed his 39sec knock out of struve… didnt see any laying around there
And his knockout of Schaub. Roy Nelson does not suck. He is the smartest fighter in the HISTORY of the Ultimate Fighter reality show. He didn’t care about impressing Dana White. He made it through the show winning all his fights and taking basically no damage. Then when it came time to impress Dana off the show he’s put up back to back knockouts.
He’s had to work harder to get where he is than anyone in the UFC today. He trained himself for years and to compete at the level he competed at with no sparring partners is amazing. Dana wouldn’t let him in the UFC after the IFL went under even though he was the Heavyweight Champ. He was worried about having a fat guy in the UFC. He’s had nothing handed to him. Ever.
Roy Nelson will beat Dos Santos. Believe it.
Nelson is for real. The man has a legitimate BJJ black belt from Renzo Gracie. Whatever you think of Renzo as a fighter, you’d be a fool to question him as a trainer. He is the first and only IFL heavyweight champ, he out-grappled Frank Mir, and he’s got fists that can’t be ignored. I don’t know that he’ll beat JDS, but people need to stop writing him off just because of his gut.
so u only watched roy fight kimbo then?
Anderson Silva has lost my respect with his last fight…I mean, he won rounds 1-3 then didn’t engage hardly at all in the last two rounds unless the ref told him to. That’s not a way a champion should fight. Look at Lesnar…I may not like him but he got his ass destroyed in the first round by Carwin and came back I think that fight should have been stopped but there are others who will beat Lesnar. If Cain doesn’t beat him I’m sure JDS will. Though I must say I wanna see Cain vs Junior.
I can unerstand that JDS gets a shot at the title if he wins but Roy Nelson really? He has fought twice in the ufc and he beat Shaub and Struve i think he does not deserve it yet.
but you’re dissmissing his IFL experience… roy is the most underestimated fighter i have seen in years… dont count him out until the fight is over…
he is deserving of a chance at a title shot… just like JDS is… i think this is a good fight for both guys should be a good one to watch
If he can knockout jds then I have alotta faith in him against brock (or cain)
Like I said before big country will be the next ufc hw champ
roy nelson got knocked out by andre arlovski.
end of story.
JDS beats nelson by murder in the first round.
Jo,
That only happened after Arlovski was rescued from underneath Nelson by a bogus referee stand-up.
justin.
nelson has been kod
junior hasnt.
juniors notable wins: gonzaga, cro cop and the fedor slayer werdum.
roys notable wins:… kimbo?
JDS is just on another level
JDS last 4 fights : 4-0
Roy last 4 fights : 2-2
sorry dude, JDS is just on a whole other level.
stepping stone to title shot!
:)
Those 2 losses were to Arlovski featuring the terrible stand up and to Monson featuring terrible judging, and more bad stand ups. I’m not saying he’s necessarily going to beat JDS, but he’s certainly not just some overrated tomato can being thrown in there with JDS like you’re portraying him.
Also, just as an FYI, you need to use a real email account, or else I’m going to start deleting your comments.
This is the best card of the year so far. There isn’t ONE fight worth not watching. Hope they all get shown somehow.
Mir lost to carwin and lesnar. How is nelson ahead of him? Jds vs mir would show if jds is the next top dog and if mir is either with the top of the division or just a very good hw
mir has lost fights and nelson has been winning fights… hmmmmm seems kind of obvious to me…
and with the fan momentum that nelson has its only fair he get to fight for a title shot…
i think roy has alot more to show us and the match with JDS will allow him to show us what hes got hidden away in that belly
Maybe Mir has lost 2 fights in the last 2 years because he’s fighting guys like Carwin and Lesnar, while Roy Nelson is fighting guys like Brendan Schaub and Stefan Struve.
In the last 2+ years Frank Mir has fought against the sport’s toughest HWs and scored a 3-2 record, while Roy Nelson was losing fights to Jeff Monson and Andrei Arlovski on the small show circuit.
If you’re a Mir detractor and/or a Nelson supporter thats fine, and you’re entitled to your POV, but please lets not try and somehow justify this logically.
Roy Nelson hasn’t accomplished a fraction of what Frank Mir has in MMA, and THAT should seem “kind of obvious” to you as well…
Nelson lost to Arlovski because of a questionable stand-up by the ref. Actually, the stand-up was beyond questionable, it was flat-out wrong. He was dominating Arlovski until some backwoods hick of a ref decided that grappling meant you were doing nothing. You know, the one gripe you consistently have with refs.
Also, Mir has fallen far…and fast. Why is Nelson ahead of him? He’s hotter. He wins. He wins decisively. Mir is what, 1-2 in his last three? He’s been brutally put out to pasture both of the last times he went for a strap. He’s no where near a title shot on that alone.
Ease up, jcohl. You’re starting to fall off the “I know my stuff and back it up” line onto the “I’ve been here and I’m going to belittle for no reason” line.
@dbiz – wow. YOU’RE asking ME to ease up?!
Thats hysterical.
But all good my friend, and a clear indication that maybe your good mood was caused by some friendly female companionship over the holiday weekend?
;-)
@dbiz Did you mention that Mir’s only win was over the corpse formerly known as Mr. Peepers?
Also @dbiz – Hold up a sec here, O King of Snark.
How has Frank Mir “fallen far and fast?”
In the last 2 years the guy has held and fought for both the Interim and HW titles, and has had sponsors banging down his door.
The last appearance Mir made at an area motorcycle dealership looked more like one of those midnite Twilight book releases at your local Borders, minus the middle school emo girls with the laughably dyed black hair and nail polish.
And Mir looks almost like a NASCAR driver with all the logos on his clothes, ride, etc.
Roy Nelson’s “hotness” comes from a reality TV show and a pair of wins against average talent.
And Nelson’s title cred?
Please, there isn’t any, unless we’re talking about that binge hot dog eating throwdown they have out on Coney Island every 4th of July.
I admit that Mir isn’t the best in the world, and over at the forum I have him ranked at #3.
Yes, the guy brutally lost to Lesnar and Carwin, who almost everyone agrees are the top 2 MMA [super]HWs in the sport.
However everyone else he’s faced in the last couple of years he’s beaten pretty “decisively”, including a 90 second sub of the champ.
And I know some subscribe to the “Mazagatti beat Lesnar, not Mir” philosophy, but if you really watch the fight, when Maz “questionably” stands the fighters up Mir is going for a submission, which given his background, not to mention how the fight played out seconds later, seems to indicate that neither man received an advantage.
I guess you’d also write off the BigNog win as a combo of your PRIDE syndrome and BigNog’s reported prior illness, but what about Cheick Kongo, who Mir made look stupid in the cage?
Look, I know Mir can be hard to take, but give the man the creidt he’d due.
If Dana is simply looking for fresh faces in the mix at HW, fine.
If Dana wants to shelve Mir, or sign him to fight at 205, thats also his perrogative.
But disregarding Mir simply doesn’t work when you look at his performances in the cage against some of the best HW MMA fighters in the world…
@bsbiz – et tu?
Your mom would be proud ;-)
But aren’t you forgetting about Cheick Kongo?
Or are you bizzes writing off everyone Mir beats because it doesn’t vibe with your “Mir is done” POV?
All I’m asking for is for Mir to be given the respect he’s earned in the cage.
And yes I’m wearing a Hawaiian Fight Gear shirt while I type this…
;-)
Our mother usually is proud of us.
Except when we get drunk, Twitter and Facebook inappropriate things, and fling feces at each other like a bunch of chimps.
Uh nelson is ahead of mir becuz he didn’t just get murdered in his last fight and has been knockin people out
And jds would just murder mir in the first worse then carwin did
Big country vs jds makes perfect sense
I think Mir was planning to move to LHW, which is why he wasn’t slated for another fight. For that reason, take Mir out of the mix and JDS vs Nelson sounds reasonable. I know Nelson hasn’t done enough YET to get the title shot. But we all agree that JDS has, and if Nelson beats JDS, doesn’t that mean he’s ready?
Mir has since backtracked on dropping to LHW and is now talking about how he’d like to fight his way back to another chance at
getting beat up byfighting Brock Lesnar.@justin – did you edit yourself in the above post?
;-)
They put roy nelson against JDS, so that they will be sure they can cut him this time…rubbing that fat stomach in front of the camera like nelson does is not a UFC stuff.
if they cut nelson for losing once it wouldnt look good on the UFC… at least IMO
especailly after he just won TUF…
belly rubs allow the majority of american mma fans to feel like they have a chance at the ufc… hes just playing to the audience….. lol
haha thats true about the belly rubs, also there is no way they could cut roy after one loss
I’m not sure if I buy into “Roy Nelson, title contender”, but he is a TUF winner and we know by know that they are usually on a different track to the spotlight.
Also, no matter how many of us have trouble seeing Nelson as a contender, apparently DW does, and thats all that really matters.
Question I have is simply this:
I thought that DW had said previously that JDS had ALREADY done enough to earn a title shot by throwing beatings to the Fedor-killer Werdum, Stefan Struve, Mirko CroCop, DW favorite Yvel, and former title challenger Gabriel Gonzaga.
Unless my recall has gone to sh!t, then why must JDS face another opponent and somehow AGAIN earn a title shot?
And Roy Nelson?
Really?
Are we supposed to believe that winning TUF and beating Stefan Struve is the determinent for HW title contention?
I can understand bypassing BigNog because of the whole “BlackHouse” issue, but how does Roy Nelson merit this opportunity ahead of Frank Mir?
The only way I see this as legit is if Mir has in fact informed Dana White that he’s dropping to 205 as previously reported/rumored, and therefore removed himself from the HW equation for the foreseeable future.
If not, there is simply no way to not call “bullsh!t” on this disturbingly odious bit of “matchmaking”.
Either Dana White or Joe Silva, maybe both, are asleep at the wheel on this one.
Will it be a good fight?
Probably.
Has Roy Nelson done enough in the UFC to merit a title contender opportunity?
Probably not, but then again Frank Mir didn’t win a reality TV show and KO the feared Stefan Struve.
He merely posted a 3-2 record while claiming the Interim title and facing the toughest opposition any HW has faced in the last 2 1/2 years…
I think the answer is pretty simple really. Behind Cain, right now JDS IS the next heavyweight contender, however if he were to lose to Roy Nelson, how can you still give him the next title shot? Exactly, you can’t have a fighter coming off a loss fight for the belt unless of course it’s a rematch.
At the moment, Roy Nelson isn’t quite deserving of a title shot, however if he were to beat the next in line for a shot(JDS), he rightfully becomes the #1 contender himself. It’s only fair.
I think Dana and the rest of the UFC are banking on an easy JDS victory. But you can’t ever rule the FAT man out. He’s a strategic fighter, with a great chin and some serious ground skills. Wouldn’t surprise me in the least to see him pull off the upset.
So again to summarize my main point. It Junior Dos Santos is the next #1 contender, and Roy Nelson beats him, it’s only logical that Roy Nelson takes over that #1 contenders spot from him. Blame this log jam of contenders on an unfortunate illness that kept the champ sidelined for a year.
“you can’t have a fighter coming off a loss fight for the belt unless of course it’s a rematch.”
@markusJ – did you by any chance email this to Scott Coker before Brett Rogers stepped in against Alistair Overeem ??
;-)
lol jcohl….. desperate times call for desperate measures. Thank god our heavyweight division in the UFC is slightly more well rounded than that of Strikefarce! ;)
Much more rounded if you look at Nelson.
Last I heard, Mir was working his weight down to 205 to see if he can make light-heavy. Carwin broke him mentally. So we should probably stop bringing him as a Heavyweight Contender until he decides that HEavyweight is where he wants to be.
Secondly, Roy Nelson probably should fight one more fight after he beats Dos Santos. But Dos Santos should too.
True, Nelson has only had 2 UFC fights compared to JDS’s 5 UFC fights. Both are undefeated in the UFC thus far, and until someone beats them, their stock will continue to rise quickly.
However, neither have faced a Top 5 UFC heavyweight yet. To me Dos Santos hasn’t beaten many people with value. He’s just fought more people than Big Country.
Werdum – got cut from UFC
Struve – Nelson beat him too
Gonzaga – Hasn’t looked great since Couture dominated him
Cro Cop – Past his prime
Yvel – Not a Top 10 heavy
Dos Santos hasn’t beat a Top 5 Heavyweight, yet finds himself in line for a title shot. Pretty sweet deal for both guys.
Maybe the winner of this fight should face Carwin for the next shot.
> Question I have is simply this:
> I thought that DW had said previously that JDS had ALREADY done
> enough to earn a title shot by throwing beatings to the Fedor-killer
> Werdum, Stefan Struve, Mirko CroCop, DW favorite Yvel, and former
> title challenger Gabriel Gonzaga.
> Unless my recall has gone to sh!t, then why must JDS face another
> opponent and somehow AGAIN earn a title shot?
Answer I have is this: If he doesn’t have a fight which inherently puts your next #1 contender status on the line, he goes a year without a fight, which seems to lead to trouble when your first fight back is a title fight. No fights until he gets that shot? Instant “ring rust” excuse.
If JDS is actually the clear next shot, he shouldn’t have a problem with Nelson. If he does, he wasn’t as clearly next to begin with.
I’m not saying you’re wrong, but I guess for me the hair in this particular bowl of chili is what happens if JDS breaks his hand punching Nelson’s ticket to the prelims?
JDS would stand to lose the title shot his promoter has previously said he’s earned due to an injury in a fight he really didn’t need, other than to “stay sharp”?
More than once we’ve seen guys get swerved out of “Earned” title shots, and I’d hate to see it happen to a quality sportsman like JDS…
Dos Santos should have the next title shot regardless. No way should Roy Nelson be in a number 1 contender fight right now.
i dont disagree with any of the above but,
although DS looks scarier big country he is great as an all around mma fighter and wont be surprised if he wins.
– either way they\ll be fighting brock or cain. arguably the 2 best at takedowns ( brock might be better but with cains recent standup to worry about and his cardio far superior to brocks i’d be more worried about cain in some respects)
so if DS can’t beat big country he’ll have a very tough time with cain or brock
How do you figure Brock’s cardio is so terrible? I’m looking for Cain to get steamrolled.
well not terrible against carwins – not terrible for a guy his size – but yea compared to cains yes absolutely terrible
Lesnar owned Herring for 3 full rounds. He looked fresh as a daisy going into round 2 at 116. I’d say his cardio is just fine.
lesnar didn’y have much to use cardio on in the herring fight cause h, but still i partially agreee got on top of the fight early
brock is going to have his way with cain then beat jds or BIG country, brocks next legitamate challenge in my opinion will be when carwin gets his rematch
Look forget about Mir that’s out of picture for now. No one wants to see lesnar vs Mir 3. It’s too soon and not like Mir put up a fight in either of the two times. JDS and Nelson are next and that’s that. Nelson has previous experience not just TUF just like Shields from SF they are contenders. Nelson just took a diffrent entrance (tougher as well) JDS has looked impressive in his fights. And there is NO other names in HW more deserving. Anyway you wanna see it…. Good call Dana.
Wait a minute.
Mir didn’t put up a fight in EITHER of his fights with Lesnar?
Have you actually SEEN those fights?
In their first fight Mir submitted Lesnar in 90 seconds [the only man to do so], and Lesnar evened the score in their second fight, which featured a competitive first round, and admittedly a short and violent second round.
How the he11 do you get “Mir not putting up a fight [against Lesnar]” out of that?!
Poor ‘ol Roy. Oh well.
JDS will not only KO Brock (Brock will beat Cain) but he will follow that up with a KO of Carwin. Then, all the bandwagoners will jump on his tail. The only legitimate threat to JDS is someone who can beat him at his own game (stand up) which is nobody currently in the HW division of UFC. (Carwin is too slow for JDS and that head is too big to miss)
Just my opinion…
117 : brazil vs usa ???
Soooooooo roy just gets like 2 fights beat JDS and gets a title shot while JDS has to knock out 6 guys what a ****ing joke!
santos wont knock big country out , big country is a very good mma fighter he will be the one who submits santos just cause of his size still a very good jui jit su fighter
shane carwin will always be a one round fighter if you survive the first round hes gased out so saying that these where the 2 best heavy weight in the world his wrong to say
Name the heavyweight fighter that would beat both of them if you don’t think they were fighting to determine the number 1.
I think Velasquez would beat Carwin making Carwin the number 3 Heavy in the world. Cain has one thing Carwin does not have and that’s cardio. However, that was only revealed affter the Lesnar fight, so pre-fight they were definitely fighting for the #1 Heavy in the World Title.
My rankings would be as follows:
Lesnar
Velasquez
Carwin
Mir
Overeem
Fedor
JDS
Nogueira
Couture
Werdum
Feel free to call me a buffoon if you’d like.
the ufc wanted to show kimbo and roy nelson up has they where in another mma tv show kimbo he has shown hes not a top mma fighter but people want to see him but roy nelson it could back fire has when he beats santos he will have a title shot and when he fights brock who knows if nelson gets him down could submit him and a fighter ufc didnt want, they wanted him to lose on the ultimate fighter thats why they had kimbo vs nelson so both couldnt make final and have a elx fighter winning the ufighter but he did and he could be the ufc champion in 6 months big country roy nelson
My bad guys…
Hey joe! “Give us your thoughts” about this trend…LOL
santos just has to watch the nelson vs arvloski fight
Nelson got ktfo
if he watches that fight he’d better not try to replicate it… not often a Ref decides to stand you up when you’re in a dominating position and working to secure a finish…
JDS Vs. Roy Nelson will be interesting. JDS will fight somebody the complete opposite of him. I like JDS a lot, but I really don’t dislike Big Country, but I don’t see Big Country ever being the UFC heavyweight champ. I can see Dos Santos one day wearing the belt. He’s 26 years old and only has one minor blemish on his record, which was early in his career. JDS just needs to make sure Big Country doesn’t do his signature move and lay his sweaty belly on him. JDS is the real deal.
All i got to say is i’m very pumped for this card and 118