Kyle Nelson enters Noche UFC on Saturday off a huge win at home as part of UFC 289 in June, and it feels like everything is clicking for the Canadian right now.
His fight with Fernando Padilla is a chance for Nelson (14-5-1) to secure two wins in a row for the first time in his UFC run. Plus, he has his own beer coming out, Fight Camp Light Lager. Things up looking up, in other words.
Asked about life ahead of a fight, and which was worse, Fight Week or the week prior, Nelson told Cageside Press recently that “Fight Week’s pretty easy. Fight Week’s the best, because you’ve done pretty much all the hard work. You’ll still do some cardio and strength and conditioning stuff, but by that point, you’ve basically made it. Now you’re just hanging around, resting and recovering, waiting for the fight.”
“I would say the two weeks leading up to the Fight Week are probably the hardest.”
Getting to bed the night before the fight, meanwhile, has gotten easier for Nelson over the years.
“When I was younger and first got in the UFC that night before would be kind of heard to get some sleep,” he noted. “But after you do your weight cut and all that stuff, and make weight and you refuel, your body’s already gone through a lot. So it’s ready to get some sleep.”
“Now that I’m so experienced it’s pretty easy for me to turn that part of my brain off. I’ve already worked for six or eight weeks up to that point to get ready for the fight, so there’s nothing that I’m going to be able to do that Friday night before the fight that’s going to affect the fight.”
Kyle Nelson is jumping from the UFC’s return to Canada, a massive card in its own right, to one of the promotion’s biggest Fight Night events in years, Noche UFC. Topped off by a title fight, there will be a lot of eyes on the card, and Nelson has landed on the main card against Padilla, who will rep Mexico at an event celebrating Mexican Independence Day.
“I think it’s a great match-up,” Nelson said regarding the fight. “He kind of burst on the UFC scene, he fought Julian Erosa, a guy that I’ve trained a lot with in Las Vegas, and he did well. He was landing some nice shots, kind of boxing at range, and kind of caught Julian early on.” While Nelson believes it might have been a bit of an early stoppage, “that just adds to the hype of Fernando. So I think we’re going to match up well. He’s a good boxer, got some good jiu-jitsu and stuff, but I think all around I’m definitely better.”
Nelson also addressed the state of MMA in the Canadian Province of Ontario. Hailing from Huntsville, ON, Nelson agreed that the athletic commission has been a key issue in the lack of growth of the sport — with exorbitant fees for medicals and licensing.
“Yeah absolutely. The commission, it wasn’t even legal in Ontario until what, 2010 or 2011?” observed Nelson. “The commission has been slow kind of pushing, and holding back MMA in Ontario.”
“Amateur MMA is still a grey area and stuff. Once we can get some amateur MMA going, it will help build the scene,” he added. Nelson also pointed out that behind the scenes, there have been changes to the athletic commission with some new people getting on board. “That will hopefully help sort that out, maybe make the medicals a little bit more feasible and make some of the commission fees a little bit cheaper so we can have more shows.”
Watch the our full interview with Noche UFC’s Kyle Nelson above!
