Three minute rounds? Ten round title fights? Roy Nelson states his case

It's actually pretty well known amongst athletes, that the more muscular you are, the more oxygen your body requires to operate at a high level. It's tough to be very muscular and have great cardio. Somewhere in the middle of muscularity is usually ideal. Of course, with the extra muscle comes extra strength so you can achieve more with less effort. It's a very tricky balancing act to decide how much muscle to carry for a specific weight class. Roy obviously trains hard and his heart/lungs are developed to handle it even if he could probably do more with less (fat).

Originally Posted by County Mike

It's actually pretty well known amongst athletes, that the more muscular you are, the more oxygen your body requires to operate at a high level. It's tough to be very muscular and have great cardio. Somewhere in the middle of muscularity is usually ideal. Of course, with the extra muscle comes extra strength so you can achieve more with less effort. It's a very tricky balancing act to decide how much muscle to carry for a specific weight class. Roy obviously trains hard and his heart/lungs are developed to handle it even if he could probably do more with less (fat).

No doubt. I was able to do a lot more when my weight was 185 vs 240 when I was a pro wrestler. He has no issue going 5 minutes. I think he just thinks the fans want more action and less feeling out.

Originally Posted by Dethbob

That would pretty much eliminate the ground game. Might as well delete the grappling altogether and just call it ‘MMBoxing’.

Exactly.

With what Roy described, the "unified rules" would go out the window. IMO It would also take away from the ground game a lot. I enjoy a good grappling match. Three min. is not enough time when you have two high level grapplers in there going at it on the ground for a submission.

[rockdawg21]

Originally Posted by County Mike

He actually seems to have way more cardio than I would expect from a man of his physique.

I agree, his cardio is pretty awesome for carrying all that dead weight, but in the 2 3-round fights I've seen him in - Arlovski and JDS, he gassed in the 3rd rounds.