Photo by Esther Lin for MMA Fighting.
Heavyweight Fabricio Werdum spent three rounds beating on Roy Nelson in UFC 143's Fight of the Night but it didn't come easy. Werdum told Brazilian news site Sporto TV Globo that his repeated knees to Nelson's face actually caused him considerable pain:
It's unbelievable. My leg is hurting, I can't even walk right because of the knees I threw. It was four or five in the same place. It opened up a cut and it broke his nose. It's impressive how he can endure punishment. The guy is a warrior, 35 years old and he can really take it. He showed this physically, even though it doesn't show.
Despite Werdum's pained leg, Nelson clearly came out on the worse end of the deal as this photo of his split open forehead shows.
Werdum also talked about his hopes for future opponents:
I never chose an opponent. I fight whoever they send me. But Frank Mir would be good. He said the other day that he thought my ground was good, it even surprised me. But I don't quite believe in him too much, he hyped it up a bit. To fight him in Brazil would be ideal.
A bout with Mir would put Werdum near the top of the division right away, which is likely fitting for the man who dethroned Fedor Emelianenko from his undefeated perch.
Translated by BE's one and only Orcus.
SBN coverage of UFC 143: Diaz vs. Condit
1 recs | 58 comments
I would be so pumped to see Werdum-Mir for the number one contender.
T.C. Engel - February 6, 2012
That's the fight I was hoping for after he beat Roy
I’d love to see Werdum snap his arm.
Chris Barton - February 6, 2012
I'm just praying it goes to the ground.
I expect it to be a disgusting boxing match.
T.C. Engel - February 6, 2012
could they just start it on the ground?
gspmademegay - February 6, 2012
That would be nice....
But if we get the Muay Thai of Werdum´s last fight and Mir´s Boxing defense from his last fight, a couple of sweet takedowns and some great rolling, that would be even better :-)
Hugin - February 6, 2012
That's what I expect as well
I’m waiting for an interviewer to ask a coach/fighter why this happens
kellly - February 6, 2012
yes. great fight.
gspmademegay - February 6, 2012
Would be great.
Sweet Scientist - February 6, 2012
Yeah, that's a fucking great fight
ElliotMatheny - February 6, 2012
i think the judges really failed to take this into account
roy was robbed.
gspmademegay - February 6, 2012
No kidding. He kept coming forward, throwing punches. He should have won.
Done with this shit.
MicahtheCynic - February 6, 2012
Rec'd
as fuck
Scott Whitaker - February 7, 2012
Roy takes horrible, prolonged abuse to his head when he goes up against the best at heavyweight. His toughness is admirable, but i hope he doesn’t live to regret it later on in life. He’s a real quick witted guy with a great personality, he’s risking losing that later on if he carries on too much longer.
sheikybaby - February 6, 2012
Cabbage, Dan Frye
I look back at those fights, when Dan was such a beast, and couldn’t believe he would just stand there in the pocket and trade blows to the head with guys much, much bigger than him. No wonder his chin faded.
Roy is going to end up like Chris Leben if he doesn’t change his ways.
RobtWeaver - February 6, 2012
*don
dr. ransom - February 6, 2012
chris? whats wrong with him?
benten20 - February 6, 2012
he's kinda punchy.
the-gentle-way - February 7, 2012 via mobile
Thanks for doing these translations Orcus
Brandon Starr - February 6, 2012
I’m here for the community :p
Orcus - February 6, 2012
War Mir!
this definately would be a fight for the fans.
although i highly doubt there will be much grappling since they both like to strike anyway.
elmojo - February 6, 2012
If Mir breaks Werdum's arm...
Oh shit…the pandemonium over the internet! Joe Rogan & Goldberg would blow their vocal chords right out…
I want this to happen, if only for the reaction it would cause.
WAR MIR!
RobtWeaver - February 6, 2012
The chances of that happening
Are nonexistent.
Patrick Wyman - February 6, 2012
isnt that what people said about mir doing that to nog?
benten20 - February 6, 2012
Sure
And Mir proved us wrong. But Nog frankly isn’t the grappler that Werdum is at this point in their respective careers, and Werdum’s younger (in terms of mileage), a better athlete, and physically stronger. They’re also much different, tactically speaking: Nog is known for high-risk sub attempts, and Werdum would never, ever give up position for a low-percentage submission against a top-flight grappler. On the other hand, I also think Mir is good enough to avoid being submitted by Fabricio.
Patrick Wyman - February 6, 2012
I'd love this fight
Because it would ensure that one of these guys loses in their next fight.
Chris Groves - February 6, 2012
I appreciate the badass element to this.
But this is nothing to be proud of.
Roy put on an awesome performance on the weekend but… he’s become the town punching bag.
This can’t be good for his health and I don’t see his career lasting very long if he continues down this path.
Roy should lose some major weight and move to 205, I hate to see him go in there and get bludgeoned.
tkotom - February 6, 2012
you hate the idea of him going in and getting bludgeoned, what do you think would happen to him at 205???
Patrick Hughes - February 6, 2012
Yeah because 205 has punchers
like JDS and Carwin right..
tkotom - February 6, 2012
No but it has more skilled fighters.
Sweet Scientist - February 6, 2012
Who are not as strong.
I appreciate what you’re saying but Roy has terrific jits, under Renzo. He keeps coming forward and he wouldn’t be at a higher risk than he would be at HW against killers of getting knocked out.
Moving to 205 could only help him, that is if he could lose the weight. I don’t see how it could be worse than staying at HW.
tkotom - February 6, 2012
Motion to stop referring to jiujitsu as "jits"
ihateemo - February 6, 2012 via mobile
I prefer jitz
Horselover Fat - February 6, 2012
Motion passed
znn! - February 6, 2012
lame
tkotom - February 6, 2012
I just call it grappling.
I think it’s stupid to refer to any type of grappling in MMA as “BJJ” or “Wrestling” or “Judo”. Grappling is a much more accurate, and much simpler term.
ElliotMatheny - February 6, 2012
Well he's also 35 and aside from a big right hand, a great chin and his jits he doesn't have so much going for him.
He wouldn’t be at higher risk of getting knocked out but he wouldn’t be at higher risk of winning a fight either. I feel like he’s gone as high as he’s gonna go as a fighter, he can still be a midlevel guy at heavyweight and finish his career there. I don’t think he makes it there at 205.
Sweet Scientist - February 6, 2012
Sad to think he missed big paydays
I learned to like Roy after the TUF thing…and now, I’m thinking it was the worst mistake he’s made. If he could have made it into the UFC without that show, I can’t help but wonder how much more money he could be making for those fights. Being locked into that TUF contract, making low $$$ for that fight with Werdum, JDS…now 35, getting too late in the game for him to change his stripes.
RobtWeaver - February 6, 2012
Really? Jones, Evans, Rampage, Machida, Shogun, Henderson, Gustafsson, Lil Nog, Thiago Silva, Matyushenko, Diabate, Bader, et al all hit at least as hard as Fabricio Werdum and are all capable of doing serious damage to Roy Nelson, and they are (almost) all faster than anyone Roy’s fought at heavyweight. Plus Roy couldn’t take down most of those guys even if he wanted to. He’d get the shit kicked out of him at 205.
Fact is, he’s a mid-level heavyweight. His record is actually quite comparable to someone like Stephan Bonnar. Hell, after Schaub (the quality of that win is still unclear) and the shot-out-of-a-cannon Cro Cop, his best win is probably Brad Imes.
VenusBlue - February 6, 2012
None of them hit as hard as JDS
and Roy survived that onslaught.
tkotom - February 6, 2012
And much good it did him
Not being KO’d doesn’t mean he didn’t sustain damage. I’m pretty sure Cain Velasquez suffered much less harm from his fight with JDS than Nelson did. The other point is that there are plenty of guys at light heavy who hit hard enough to liquidize another chunk of Roy’s brain, and who are also faster and technically better than anyone at heavyweight. Roy’s a slow fighter with poor striking and weak takedowns. He’s going to get hit whatever weight he fights at, but I personally think he’ll take less pastings at Heavyweight since there are fewer good strikers there.
VenusBlue - February 6, 2012
I guess so.
Let’s just see what is announced.
It’ll be an interesting few weeks coming up.
tkotom - February 6, 2012
Roy is 35
moving down to 205 for the first time in his career at that age is ridiculous. He would have to put his body through serious stress to lose the weight, and even then he wouldn’t be a particularly powerful 205er, it’s not like he has tons of muscle as a heavyweight anyway
Patrick Hughes - February 6, 2012
Sheesh
That’s kind of the point, he’s not a real heavyweight, he’s just fat. He probably is too far gone, but losing 30 pounds over say 6 months would not be killing himself. That’s a little more than a pound a week, or a normal person’s “diet”, and then he’d have a 10 pound cut.
As for this ridiculous myth that “he should stay where there aren’t better athletes!”….if that was true then every one of the “big” LHWs would have just moved up to HW. It’s just not easier to fight a 246 pound guy like Werdum as a 215 pound person who ate their way to 245. He got muscled around in the clinch like a child mostly because Werdum has 30 pounds of muscle on him.
Sure he’d have to change his style some, but that beats the hell out of getting a vag kneed into your face because you aren’t strong enough to break your opponent’s grip. We know how he fares against top 10 HWs, it’s at least worth seeing if he can’t be a better fighter when he’s actually at the right weight AND fighting guys who are the same size.
joker24 - February 6, 2012
it's the fact that 205 is such a stacked division I don't think he'd do well against some of the fighters lower in the rankings
it’s the fact that he’s never ever been at an athletic weight, which is what he would need at 205. Throughout his whole career he’s just been fat, and made it work best he can. I can’t think of many 205ers who are fat, they are mostly ripped and in good shape and I don’t think Roy could handle it with most of them
Patrick Hughes - February 6, 2012
good stuff
tkotom - February 7, 2012
Love the idea of Mir vs. Wedum. War Orcus!
IronMonkey13 - February 6, 2012
I don't mind Mir.
No disrespect to him but WBC Nog had Mir face down, Bloodsport Werdum would light him up on the feet in my opinion. Mir may have have the advantage over a lot guys on the ground but Werdum is a different animal there.
tkotom - February 6, 2012
I loved the fight
But I can’t really say I was a fan of Werdum’s cocky clowning he was doing. I tolerated it until he started pointing to the ground to distract Roy like some trick an uncle would use on his 8 year-old nephew.
jcbrewer - February 6, 2012
Hahaha, I thought it was awesome.
Sweet Scientist - February 6, 2012
It's just the way he is
It’s not a disrespect thing – he loves Roy Nelson and thinks highly of him – he’s just genuinely having fun out there.
Patrick Wyman - February 6, 2012
Werdum sometimes feels like a character from Mike Tyson's punch out
he is quite the jokester sometimes, I thought it was pretty hilarious.
elmojo - February 7, 2012
Mir vs. Werdum would be an awesome fight.
Make it happen, Joe Silva!!!!!
@KatanaClothing - February 6, 2012
So does this mean Cain vs Bigfoot?
Who else would Cain fight?
Troop - February 6, 2012
The Bigfoot fight is pretty spot on
discoandherpes - February 6, 2012
So we have a little tourney
Cain v Bigfoot and Mir v Werdum. So then JDS fights winner of first Mir vs Werdum then Cain vs Bigfoot? Seems like timing wise, winner of Cain vs Silva would be happening first. How’s everyone’s health right now, other than Werdum?
DankNabbot - February 7, 2012
Either way, have both Cain vs Bigfoot and Mir vs Werdum in Brazil. That would be awesome.
MicahtheCynic - February 7, 2012
I was just looking up Mir's record
I forgot that he lost to Brandon Vera, lol.
DankNabbot - February 7, 2012
All this leads me back to the question:
What is the value of having guys who you know won’t contend but wlll be a tough test for up and comers? I think there is a lot of value for the promotion, but is that enough for fighters? Do we as a fan base want gatekeepers? I like Roy. I’d like to see him be a gatekeeper, but I definitely don’t want to see him get killed or permanently damaged a la Big Daddy.
DankNabbot - February 7, 2012
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