Nelson: Dos Santos More ‘Accomplished’ Than Carwin

The opportunity to fight for a championship, especially one as prestigious as the UFC heavyweight title, doesn't come very often for a mixed martial arts fighter.

That's why Roy “Big Country” Nelson jumped at the opportunity to face Junior “Cigano” dos Santos in a matchup at UFC 117 Saturday in Oakland, Calif. The fight will serve as a title eliminator, with the winner eventually getting a shot at either Brock Lesnar or Cain Velasquez, who are facing each other at UFC 121 in October.

"I've beaten some good guys within my career and right now, I'm just taking the opportunity and running with it," Nelson said on the Sherdog Radio Network's "Jordan Breen Show" Thursday. "Usually, I just get an e-mail telling me who I'm fighting next. I'm not like a lot of fighters who say they don't want to fight certain fighters and I'm not where I get to pick and choose. I see this fight as an opportunity and I just have to run with it."

The 34-year-old Nelson, who won the tenth season of "The Ultimate Fighter" series on Spike TV and followed that with a 39-second knockout of Stefan Struve in March at UFC Fight Night 21, has been finished only once -- by former UFC heavyweight champion Andrei Arlovski -- in 19 fights. A Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt under Renzo Gracie, Nelson has delivered 12 of his 15 wins by knockout or submission.

Meanwhile, dos Santos will ride a six-fight winning streak into Saturday's matchup. The Brazilian striker is coming off a first-round stoppage of Gabriel Gonzaga at UFC on Versus 1 in March, which marked the11th finish of his career. He also owns wins against the world-ranked Fabricio Werdum, 2006 Pride Fighting Championships open weight grand prix winner Mirko “Cro Cop” Filipovic and Dutch knockout artist Gilbert Yvel.

Nelson has said dos Santos is the best heavyweight in the UFC due to the victories he's notched while in the Octagon. "Cigano" is 5-0 in the UFC, with four of the five wins coming in the first round.

"(Dos Santos) knocked Werdum's block off," Nelson said. "He beat Cro Cop, beat Gonzaga and beat Struve, too. He's beaten some great guys. He's not like some of the guys who've already fought for the title where they might have beat one good guy. He's beaten a few good guys."

Nelson confirmed that his last remarks were directed to former title challenger Shane Carwin, who lost to Lesnar via second-round submission at UFC 116 last month. After the fight, Carwin claimed his body started cramping up between the first and second rounds and that was the reason for the loss. Nelson is skeptical of Carwin's version of what happened that night.

"If anybody disagrees with me that (Carwin) quit, we did see him physically tap, so that means you quit," said Nelson. "It's not that (dos Santos) is light years ahead of Carwin, but Junior's accomplished a few more things than Shane did before his title fight. I thought dos Santos was going to get a title shot when he beat Werdum because Werdum was going to get a title shot if he'd have won that fight."

Even though he is highly skilled on the ground and the lone loss of dos Santos' career did come via submission (to Joaquim Ferreira in 2007), Nelson isn't sure whether he's going to try and take dos Santos down.

"It just depends on how the fight goes," said Nelson. "Usually I go into every fight thinking that if I can beat you with my worst attribute, which is my striking, and I do OK there, then there's no need to do anything else. Hitting people in the face is a lot easier than wrestling and doing ju-jitsu. Ju-jitsu is something where you have to wear the guy down and wrestling is very tiring."