Everything you don’t know about Roy ‘Big Country’ Nelson

By Brett Okamoto

Friday, April 9, 2010 | midnight

When random fans approach Roy Nelson for an autograph, the Las Vegas native likes to give them a pop quiz regarding his last fight to see if they are true fans or someone just looking for an "I met a celebrity" moment.

Usually, they end up passing the test.

But truth be told, the casual fan would probably fail a pretty basic quiz on Big Country's life.

In other words, there's a side of Roy Nelson you didn't get to see on "The Ultimate Fighter."

"True fans know exactly who I was before the show," said Nelson, who was portrayed as the thorn in UFC President Dana White's side in the 10th season of the show. "The casual fan didn't know any better. Those are the guys that just turn on the TV and that's what it is."

For instance, here's a pop quiz question: What was Nelson's job long before the UFC and even his days of fighting in the IFL?

As a child who was born and raised in Las Vegas and understands the temptations the city offers, Nelson did his best to steer kids down the right path as a substitute teacher and after-school program volunteer with Clark County for seven years.

"I worked for the county for seven years, mostly doing Safekey programs and substitute teaching," Nelson said. "The thing in Vegas is either you go down the wrong road or the right road. There are kind of two choices versus what you get in a small town, where you can kind of play on the line of both sides.

"I've always been the guy that kept my nose clean, but I've been around what Las Vegas and Sin City is. I love teaching kids and helping them go down the right road."

That doesn't sound like the brash, arrogant fighter who beat Kimbo Slice in the third episode of the season and went on to become the obvious bad guy on the show.

It's just one of many little things about the real Nelson that don't line up with the way he was portrayed.

Other things about Nelson that remain mostly unknown? The heavyweight dedicates a large amount of his time to training young professional fighters (they call themselves The Country Club). They're such a close group that not only does Nelson train them, but his wife, Jessy, manages their careers.

Nelson doesn't mind being in the spotlight, but he doesn't exactly seek it. He neglected to mention it was his birthday during the filming of the show because he didn't want the attention.

When he trains, he wears pink boxing gloves he inherited when they proved too big for Jessy. He presses the prints from his sponsors onto his fighting shorts himself and designs the banner they hang behind him before fights.

And that fight that officially pushed him into the spotlight — the TKO win over Kimbo on the show — earned him more grief than it may have been worth.

Shortly after it was aired on Spike, Nelson and Jessy started receiving death threats.

"They were just from ignorant people," Nelson said. "People who would write, 'How could you do that?' and 'You didn't even win the fight,' — we got a lot of them."

While the way the show was edited didn't do too many favors for Nelson, the 33-year-old fighter isn't afraid to speak his mind.

According to fellow TUF 10 contestant and friend Scott Junk, however, speaking your mind isn't necessarily a bad thing when you're right as often as Nelson.

"Roy will speak his mind, so sometimes he can come off as arrogant," said Junk, who temporarily is living at Nelson's house while training for an upcoming fight. "But he's not. He's just saying what he's thinking, and most of the time it makes sense.

"A lot of guys were thrown off by that and said, 'Oh, he thinks he's right all the time.' But a lot of times, he is right."

Junk wishes he would have listened to Nelson more while on the show, especially right before his first-round elimination fight with Matt Mitrione.

That fight became one of the most infamous of the season when, in a majority-decision loss, Junk suffered an eye injury that put his fighting career in jeopardy.

Before the fight started, Nelson urged Junk to take it to the ground and win as safely as possible.

Wanting to make an impression on the UFC and fans, however, Junk didn't listen.

"He told me before my fight, 'Don't make it exciting. Just take it to the ground and win,'" Junk said. "I was like, 'Nah. I don't want to do that. I want to punch and make it a brawl so Dana loves it.'

"And look what I got out of it? Nothing. I got released from the UFC and had to have eye surgery. If I would have just listened to him, then I probably would have made it farther."

In the end, Nelson knows what happened during the editing of the show and he knows the kind of reputation it left him.

He knows that while on the show, as a member of Team Rashad, he would get home early and leave a plate of food in the microwave for Junk so it would be ready when Team Rampage returned from late practice — something that never was shown on the series.

But at the same time, Nelson doesn't care. He's 2-0 in the UFC, with knockout wins over Brendan Schaub and Stefan Struve.

He doesn't need to be the good guy to fans. He just needs to matter.

Which is why he'll always grant you an autograph, but he wants you to tell him how his last fight ended first.

"I think Dana portrayed me as being the (expletive) that went out there and won and that ruffled his feathers," Nelson said. "But it doesn't matter if you're the good guy or the bad guy. The thing about this business is they have to either love you or hate you."

Brett Okamoto can be reached at 948-7817 or [email protected]. Also follow him on twitter: LVSunFighting.