Heavyweight Fabricio Werdum looked great against Roy Nelson last night at UFC 143rd Werdum took home a well deserved unanimous decision win, taking all three rounds on all three score cards for Judges 30-27's across the board.
This was the first Werdum at UFC bout since losing the current Champ Junior dos Santos from Ko back of UFC 90 in 2008. Since then, Werdum has fought four times in the Strike Force, going 3-1 and being the first to defeat Fedor Emelianenko.
UFC President Dana White singing praises Werdum after the battle and it's easy to see why. Werdum beat up Nelson at his feet and nearly kill him on the ground. Werdum ate several hard punches, but recovered and was never in serious danger of losing the fight.
"Roy is very strong and can withstand lots of bumps, but I found his weak spots," Werdum said after the fight. "This fight was important to me. I trained hard every day for this fight. I had a good direction to go in the fight but the main thing for me was coming out with a victory. I want to fight in Brazil next year."
But this means that we have a new contender in the UFC heavyweight divsion?
Not so fast.
Werdum may be 4-2 in his last six fights, but he lost two men just happen to be a champion dos Santos and # 1 contender Alistair Overeem. Overeem beat Werdum in an awful fight last year that saw Werdum flop to guard more than anyone this side of Thales Leite or Demian Maia against Anderson Silva. His loss to dos Santos, who is fast Ko when Werdum loooked down (a cardinal sin in boxing) in perfect uppercut, was at least very watchable fight in any Quick-texture that is rarely repeated in the rematch.
We'll see if Fabricio Werdum has what it takes to be a contender in the UFC heavyweight division.
As for Roy Nelson, this was his third loss in four fights. Nelson is expected to be under intense pressure from the UFC brass to drop down to light heavyweight divsion.
This was the first Werdum at UFC bout since losing the current Champ Junior dos Santos from Ko back of UFC 90 in 2008. Since then, Werdum has fought four times in the Strike Force, going 3-1 and being the first to defeat Fedor Emelianenko.
UFC President Dana White singing praises Werdum after the battle and it's easy to see why. Werdum beat up Nelson at his feet and nearly kill him on the ground. Werdum ate several hard punches, but recovered and was never in serious danger of losing the fight.
"Roy is very strong and can withstand lots of bumps, but I found his weak spots," Werdum said after the fight. "This fight was important to me. I trained hard every day for this fight. I had a good direction to go in the fight but the main thing for me was coming out with a victory. I want to fight in Brazil next year."
But this means that we have a new contender in the UFC heavyweight divsion?
Not so fast.
Werdum may be 4-2 in his last six fights, but he lost two men just happen to be a champion dos Santos and # 1 contender Alistair Overeem. Overeem beat Werdum in an awful fight last year that saw Werdum flop to guard more than anyone this side of Thales Leite or Demian Maia against Anderson Silva. His loss to dos Santos, who is fast Ko when Werdum loooked down (a cardinal sin in boxing) in perfect uppercut, was at least very watchable fight in any Quick-texture that is rarely repeated in the rematch.
We'll see if Fabricio Werdum has what it takes to be a contender in the UFC heavyweight division.
As for Roy Nelson, this was his third loss in four fights. Nelson is expected to be under intense pressure from the UFC brass to drop down to light heavyweight divsion.
