(Roy Nelson gives Ariel Helwani the obligatory belly rub.)
Roy Nelson became the newest/fattest "Ultimate Fighter" winner with his knockout of Brendan Schaub at last night’s TUF 10 Finale. Dana White must have been at least a little impressed this time, because he awarded "Big Country" the Knockout of the Night bonus, worth a cool $25,000. Mark Bocek took home the Submission of the Night bonus for the rear naked choke on Joe Brammer that came at the end of an absolute grappling clinic. Fight of the Night went to Frankie Edgar and Matt Veach for a spirited two round battle that ended with a submission victory for Edgar.
Noticeably absent from that list of bonuses are Kimbo Slice and Houston Alexander, who both spent about fifty percent of their much-hyped fight waiting for the other guy to do something. Slice eventually won the decision, and even managed to look like he knew a thing or two about the ground game (mostly by virtue of Alexander knowing nothing about it), but the way both men nearly collapsed as soon as the final horn sounded should be a clue that neither of them is an elite athlete in peak physical condition.
As for the UFC, they drew a reported 1,400 spectators for a $504,350 live gate at the Pearl at the Palms last night. By comparison, the TUF 9 Finale at the same exact venue this past summer drew 2,217 fans (1,801 actually paid for their ticket) for a live gate of $498,650.
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commentsi realize the lay off between the show ending and finale is long. what i guess i was trying to illustrate was the difference in behaviour displayed by both Nelson and Alexander from their previous fights vis a vis their fight with Kimbo. clearly, both have competed against arguably superior competition and both seemed (to me) to give Kimbo an easier time. anyways, i get what you're saying. also i really wanted to use "vis a vis" in a comment.
"understand that Nelsons rationale is that he wanted to avoid injury so early in the competition, but he could have conceivably ended the semi-final fight with the same "pitty pat" punches. this would have allowed him to avoid injury before the final."
That's apples to oranges. Roy could have been fighting within a week of beating Kimbo so it's smart to not go all out in that one. The same is not true for the McSweeney fight. That was a semifinal fight.. meaning the last fight of the reality show. After that fight they all go home and wait around for months and months while the show is finished, aired, and it's time for the finale. Roy probably had close to a year to recover from the McSweeney fight as opposed to the possibility of fighting one week after the kimbo fight.
Maybe he can go with Brock maybe he can't, so what if he has confidence, most fighters do. He has fought top fighters before and that educates a fighter's evaluation on where he stands in the division. I think he's earned it and this was a perfect opportunity for him.
Oh and nelson vs. brandon vera? Please. Vera has lost all signs of being an exciting and aggressive fighter. And is at light heavyweight.
TUF 10 finale's gate of $504,350 for 1400 spectators equals an average ticket price of about $360, and that's presuming they all paid which most likely isn't true, so the actual average is even higher.
Nearly $400 per ticket for the finale of the worst season of TUF ever... no wonder the place looked half empty. I wouldn't pay even half that for that show.
All we're saying is go back and watch the alexander vs jardine fight. If he wasn't afraid of jardine why would he be scared of a guy who got his ass handed to him by seth petrucelli.
taking a look at alexander's resume it's easy to see that he's aggressively fought legit contenders which makes his behavior during the Slice fight suspicious. lending a little more to this argument is if you compare Kimbo vs. Nelson to Nelson's semi-final fight on TUF. if i remember correctly, Nelson eventually ended up in side control and pounded out victories in each fight. taking a look at how much damage was inflicted in both fights however shows that Nelson did not attack Kimbo with nearly the same level of aggression as in his semi-final fight. i understand that Nelsons rationale is that he wanted to avoid injury so early in the competition, but he could have conceivably ended the semi-final fight with the same "pitty pat" punches. this would have allowed him to avoid injury before the final.
i guess what im trying to say is, muthafuckas be triflin'.
p.s and besides that... alexander is a warrior, and would never let someone dip them on their head the way kimbo did.
p.s.s. ufc fan is an idiot..
It is special... a special kind of stupid.
You have long outlived your usefulness, back under your bridge.
Sun, 12/06/2009 - 17:22
Had to finally join the damn site to comment on UFC Fan: Idiot."
So you joined just cause of me huh? wow that is special, just another reason why the Ben's should make me the moderator of this site, I bring in the people.
Ok you have outlived your usefulness , back to your trailer.
EDIT- And some of you: It's completely normal for ANY fighter to think they're awesome, it's just the mentality that has to go along with it. Some are just more...outspoken.
Just think, if Nelson or Kimbo had gone to Strikeforce earlier this year, they both could have gotten beat up by Fedor by now and this season of TUF would have had NOTHING at all going for it. NOTHING. They would have cancelled the season and probably sold the UFC to Strikeforce.
I also find it ironic that Dana White is on the Kimbo train now that the rest of the world can see that Kimbo isn't UFC material.
I actually think mazzagati didn't stop it sooner because he was afraid of being blasted for an early stoppage.
Every fight with a tko someone calls it an early stoppage, this time it was justified seeing as how matt had a dislocated shoulder, not to mention he was in a position he was making no attempt to get out of.
Fights have been stopped for way less
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