Sometimes friends can be your harshest critics. If Roy Nelson and Frank Mir are really buddies, "Big Country" should be cool with Mir's latest assessment of his career. Mir says it's time for Nelson to go down to light heavyweight.
"I know it's not easy to want to cut all that weight but I know he had talked about just changing his body composition, adding weight, getting bigger. Well Roy, you're already 260 pounds. We weighed in the same," Mir told Larry Pepe on ProMMARadio. "That means you've got to drop about 40 pounds of fat and add 40 pounds of muscle. That, to me, is a much harder task than just dropping 40 pounds of fat."
Mir thinks Nelson is carrying wasted weight.
"So for Roy to want to, at 34, he's gonna be 35 this month, try to redo his whole body, I think it would be easier to go to 205. I think his half guard would come back, his takedown defense, his mobility, his footwork," Mir said. "I think he's quick and the power he does have I think he would retain because physically he wouldn't lose any muscle. He's a 205 pound guy with a tire on."
Mir thought Nelson lacked strength, comparing him to the light heavyweights he trains with and said fellow heavyweight Mike Whitehead would beat Big Country.
Mir beat Nelson handily on the scorecards at UFC 130. The 260-pound Nelson looked exhausted by the end of the first round. Earlier this week, Nelson's wife reported that he'd visited a hospital on Monday and was diagnosed with walking pneumonia. Nelson complained of being ill weeks before the fight.
