Roy Nelson hasn’t been in a fight in nearly three years, but Friday gets to cross one off his bucket list.
Nelson will make his bareknuckle debut with a matchup against Dillon Cleckler under Jorge Masvidal’s promotional banner at Gamebred Fighting Championship 4 in Sunrise, Fla. The bout will be MMA rules, but bareknuckle.
Nelson most recently fought for Bellator, but has been inactive since a decision loss to Valentin Moldavsky at Bellator 244 in August 2020. He said he was interested in a bareknuckle boxing matchup when the bareknuckle MMA spot opened up.
“This is actually just really spontaneous,” Nelson told MMA Junkie. “I was talking to my wife. We were talking about bucket list stuff, and I reached out to Jorge because they just had the boxing match and I just wanted to get a boxing match in. Then this came up, and this is like another thing on the bucket list. So I’m like, ‘Ahh, let’s go after it.’
“I never officially retired because once I retire, I’m one of those fighters: I’m retired. … I’ve been focusing on a whole bunch of other business stuff, because there is a life after fighting.”
Nelson, the Season 10 winner of “The Ultimate Fighter,” fought in the UFC from 2009 until 2017, when he moved to Bellator. He won his first fight in the promotion, but then had a five-fight skid. And while he didn’t officially retire, the presumption by many has been that he was done fighting.
Nelson said he tried to work with Bellator to get a bout with a legend, though.
“One of my bucket list (items), I’d been talking to (Bellator president) Scott Coker for the last two years (about) the Fedor (Emelianenko) fight,” Nelson said. “He kept on (saying), ‘Yeah, we’ll see. We’ll see. I’ll talk to Fedor. All right. Yeah, we’ll see.’ And then out of left field, (he fights) Ryan Bader. Huh? Yeah – that’s the game. They stick it to you.”
So with that not on the table, Nelson, who went 23-18 in his MMA career, Nelson turned to the bucket list.
“I’ve never done any bareknuckle except in a street fight,” he said. “But usually those don’t go very well and they’re very fast because there’s usually concrete next to you. I think without the gloves, I think it’s just literally man vs. man, as long as the ref doesn’t get involved.”
The 41-year-old Cleckler had a 10-fight MMA career under the Island Fights banner and went 9-1. He’s been boxing for BKFC since 2020 and fought in April for Masvidal’s Gamebred FC.
