There hasn’t been much stuff on Gunnar Nelson lately so I thought I might give you an update on him.
First and foremost, he has recovered from his knee injury and is looking to book a fight before the end of the year. Something might even be booked very soon..
He has begun a strength and conditioning program. For the first time in his career he has a strength and conditioning coach. I’ve seen most of the sessions and they look intense! You can see some photos on his Instagram and IG story of his training.
A few months ago, Gunni was in an Icelandic podcast. It’s not an MMA podcast, just a host who gets interesting and well known people to his show. I’m not gonna do a full, well written write-up on what was said but here are a few interesting talking points that you might enjoy. Keep in mind I’m paraphrasing a lot.
• He’s not focusing on any belts. He’s just thinking about improving himself as a martial artist. “I always try to finish my fights to show the martial art, my passion. I don’t enjoy guys who just grind and grind to get the win any way possible. They won the fight but didn’t finish and you don’t really know what might have happened if there weren’t any time limit. I like seeing fighters where I go ‘man this guy is good!’. I’m not a fan of guys who are just trying to win, that isn’t as exciting. It’s awesome when you can see guys ever improving as a martial artist, fixing their holes instead of just grinding through a fight to get the W in a boring fight.”
• On trash talk: “Just not me. I like listening to good trash talk like from Conor. There are many though which I just want to see...I just want to see them shut up. Nobody wants to listen to this. It’s pretentious and silly.”
• Before fights: “No real stress before fights. When I get in the cage I’m like ‘YES! This is what I’m good at. Let’s see what he can do’”. Says that fight week is quite boring, everybody just constantly asking about the fight.
• On the Maia fight: Said he felt like his body just wasn’t ready to go. He was ready mentally but just like his body wasn’t. Like his body wasn’t turned on. Felt the same way in the Zak Cummings fight, wasn’t properly turned on then suddenly he felt like a string of electricity shot through his body in the 2nd round and he turned on! A couple of minutes later the fight was over. Suddenly he was in his own body again. Said it’s very hard to describe it and it’s a weird feeling. He felt like he was suddenly plugged in and said to himself “ok,
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