The 10th Season of The Ultimate Fighter will officially come to a close at the Palms in Las Vegas on Saturday night. Roy Nelson will be fighting Brendan Schaub to determine this season’s winner of the six-figure UFC contract.
Roy Nelson is a 13-4 former IFL Heavyweight Champion and was the odds-on favourite to win before the competition began. Nelson had previously trained with Ken Shamrock’s Lion’s Den but is not currently affiliated to any major MMA camp. He is a 6 foot, 265 lbs. fighter with a shape that can only be described as round. Before he entered the Ultimate Fighter house, Nelson was on a two-fight losing streak that included a decision loss to Jeff Monson and a 2nd Round KO loss to Andrei Arlovski for the now defunct Elite XC. Nelson defeated Kimbo Slice, Justin Wren and James McSweeney in the Ultimate Fighter house to advance into the finals. Nelson has good striking abilities and a belly that smothers opponents in a crucifix position that allows him to ground and pound his way to TKO victories.
Brendan Schaub is a former professional football player as a practice squad player for the Buffalo Bills. Schaub made the choice to leave the game of football and has gone a perfect 4-0 in his professional MMA career. Schaub has never fought anyone with the experience of Roy Nelson but trains extensively with top UFC heavyweight Shane Carwin and UFC middleweight Nate Marquardt in Colorado. Schaub also trains with Team Greg Jackson in New Mexico which allowed a smooth transition to training with Team Rashad on TUF.
Nelson does have the experience on his side but Brendan Schaub is a new breed of heavyweight. Schaub is 26 compared to Nelson at 33 and at 6’4 will bring a distinct reach advantage into the fight. Schaub will need to utilize that reach and keep this fight standing to win. If Brendan Schaub can avoid the takedown or at least avoid being smothered by Nelson after the takedown, he should have no problem scoring the knockout victory. Brendan Schaub is training with a top flight team and has no doubt improved since TUF concluded its taping. Roy Nelson won his three TUF fights basically the same way each time and showed little improvement while Schaub got an anaconda choke over Demico Rogers, knocked out Jon Madsen and knocked out the bigger Marcus Jones to earn his way into the finals. I’m picking Brendan Schaub to win this fight via second round knockout.
