Nov-30-2009

Shane Nelson – More than what you’ve seen on TV

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By Thomas Gerbasi

For better or worse, what people see of you on reality television is usually what they’ll base their opinions on. In some cases, that’s enough, because what comes through on the TV screen is pretty accurate. In the case of Shane Nelson though, what people saw on the eighth season of The Ultimate Fighter didn’t tell the whole story.

“I definitely think people got the wrong impression from how I was portrayed on the show,” said Nelson, who teamed up with notorious bad boy Junie Browning for plenty of antics on the Spike TV reality show. “But it’s weird how things work though. On the show, me and Efrain (Escudero) had that whole falling out thing, and right now Efrain’s one of my main sparring partners out here in California and he’s helping me get ready for this fight. So it just shows how much you grow from being on the show. I just try to move forward and not let any of that stuff hold me back.”

At 26, Nelson is young enough to make mistakes, yet old enough to learn from them and not make the same one twice. And what he doesn’t want is for people to think that he’s anything less than a serious, full-time mixed martial artist. That got lost a bit during the whole TUF stint, and people didn’t realize that leading up to the show and immediately after it ended, the Honolulu native had put together a combined eight fight winning streak that took him from a pedestrian record of 5-3 to one of 13-3 that marked him as a serious lightweight prospect.

“I think it kinda got lost under the radar because those wins weren’t in the big show,” said Nelson. “They (the wins) were all back home in smaller shows and a lot of people don’t follow fights that aren’t in the UFC. But I know what I’m capable of, I know my potential, and when I fight to my potential, I’m really tough to beat.”

That’s the real Shane Nelson, a well-rounded competitor with a streak of gritty determination that has become a hallmark of fighters from Hawaii. In return, Hawaiians respond to and support their athletes with a statewide enthusiasm that you rarely see these days.

“Coming from Hawaii, we’re real proud,” said Nelson. “There’s not too many of us that have made it this far, and making it to the UFC is like making it to the NFL, so when one of our guys breaks through and makes it to the big show, the whole state follows you. Everybody gets behind you and wants to see you do good because you’re representing the whole state of Hawaii. We get a lot of love from everybody and its all the more inspiration to train harder and try to put on a good show.”

A good show is what they should be expecting on December 12th, when Nelson travels to Memphis, Tennessee to take on Matt Wiman in a matchup between two forward-marching TUF alumni who aren’t afraid of a good scrap.

“I’m excited for this fight,” said Nelson. “I’ve watched Wiman’s fights a bunch and he brings it. I can’t ask for a better fight for me because we have similar styles and it makes for a good fight. He’s gonna be trying to punch and take me down, and I’ll be trying to do the same, so let’s see who’s gonna be successful.”

The fight is a pivotal one for both fighters, with Wiman coming off back-to-back losses to Jim Miller and Sam Stout, and Nelson looking to rebound from a defeat of his own in August when he dropped a three round unanimous decision to Aaron Riley in a rematch of a March bout won by Nelson via a controversial first round stoppage. Yet while Wiman picked up Fight of The Night bonuses in his defeats, Nelson’s loss to Riley was a disappointing one from an action standpoint – both to the fans and to ‘Sugar’ Shane.

“I wasn’t too happy with my performance in my last fight,” he admits. “I kinda had a little stage fright, going right before the main event as the swing bout, and it kinda threw me off a little bit. And I expected a totally different fight from Aaron Riley as well. It seemed like his gameplan was just trying to use his size to lay on me against the fence, and my best fight is fighting a guy that’s coming forward and coming after me. That’s when I fight at my best. That’s exactly what Wiman does, and it’s gonna open up a lot of openings for me with my standup and grappling. Wiman’s style is the perfect style for me, and if he’s judging my skills off my last fight, he’s making a mistake in doing that.”

Throw in another full camp in California with a pretty fair Hawaiian fighter in his own right – UFC lightweight champ BJ Penn – and the recipe is there for Nelson to get back on track before the end of 2009. That would be just what he needs after making all the sacrifices necessary (like being away from his four year old son) to make it in the UFC.

“Right now I see myself as a small fish in a big pond,” said Nelson. “There’s a lot of tough guys, especially in the 155 division. There are no easy fights in the UFC, and I just want to keep fighting for the UFC, keep getting better, and keep winning fights. That’s my main concern, to get the W any way possible and keep getting better in every fight.”