Roy Nelson
24–20 · 47 recorded bouts · 2004–2023
24–20
Roy Nelson finished 83% of 24 wins inside the distance — the 45th percentile for heavyweight MMA, where the median is 85%. No reach is on record, so this page compares record rather than measurements.
SOURCE·Roy Nelson — English Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)·derived figures computed here·REVIEWED 2026-07-26
How this record is compiled
- Measurements come from the fighter's English Wikipedia infobox; the bout list is parsed from the results table on the same article, read on 2026-07-26. Boxing tables are read by header name and MMA records by the fixed column order of the
MMA recordtemplate — two different parsers, because reading MMA rows as a boxing table returns a fighter's boxing record in place of their real one. - A bout enters the ledger with whatever fields the source states: result, opponent, method, round, year. Any field the source leaves empty stays empty here. A date that cannot be established is left blank rather than inferred, and the bout is still counted.
- A no contest is counted and printed as a no contest. It is never folded into the wins, the losses or the draws, and it never disappears to make a total balance.
- Where the article's infobox total disagrees with its own results table, both figures are published and each is labelled with where it came from. Nothing is averaged and nothing is reconciled against a second database.
- Percentiles rank this fighter among the 324 heavyweight MMA fighters in the dataset — the most specific group of at least 30 that this fighter belongs to.
Bout record
Every bout the article's own results table lists, in order. A dash is a field the source leaves empty — it is not a zero and it is not a guess.
| Year | Result | Opponent | Method | Rd |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | L | Alan Belcher | Decision | 3 |
| 2023 | W | Dillon Cleckler | KO/TKO | 1 |
| 2020 | L | Valentin Moldavsky | Decision | 3 |
| 2019 | L | Frank Mir | Decision | 3 |
| 2019 | L | Mirko Cro Cop | Decision | 3 |
| 2018 | L | Sergei Kharitonov | KO/TKO | 1 |
| 2018 | L | Matt Mitrione | Decision | 3 |
| 2017 | W | Javy Ayala | Decision | 3 |
| 2017 | L | Alexander Volkov | Decision | 3 |
| 2016 | W | Antônio Silva | KO/TKO | 2 |
| 2016 | L | Derrick Lewis | Decision | 3 |
| 2016 | W | Jared Rosholt | Decision | 3 |
| 2015 | L | Josh Barnett | Decision | 5 |
| 2015 | L | Alistair Overeem | Decision | 3 |
| 2014 | L | Mark Hunt | KO/TKO | 2 |
| 2014 | W | Antônio Rodrigo Nogueira | KO/TKO | 1 |
| 2013 | L | Daniel Cormier | Decision | 3 |
| 2013 | L | Stipe Miocic | Decision | 3 |
| 2013 | W | Cheick Kongo | KO/TKO | 1 |
| 2012 | W | Matt Mitrione | KO/TKO | 1 |
| 2012 | W | Dave Herman | KO/TKO | 1 |
| 2012 | L | Fabrício Werdum | Decision | 3 |
| 2011 | W | Mirko Cro Cop | KO/TKO | 3 |
| 2011 | L | Frank Mir | Decision | 3 |
| 2010 | L | Junior dos Santos | Decision | 3 |
| 2010 | W | Stefan Struve | KO/TKO | 1 |
| 2009 | W | Brendan Schaub | KO/TKO | 1 |
| 2009 | L | Jeff Monson | Decision | 3 |
| 2009 | W | James McSweeney | KO/TKO | 1 |
| 2008 | L | Andrei Arlovski | KO/TKO | 2 |
| 2008 | W | Brad Imes | KO/TKO | 1 |
| 2008 | W | Fabiano Scherner | KO/TKO | 1 |
| 2007 | W | Antoine Jaoude | KO/TKO | 2 |
| 2007 | W | Bryan Vetell | KO/TKO | 3 |
| 2007 | W | Shane Ott | Decision | 3 |
| 2007 | L | Ben Rothwell | Decision | 3 |
| 2007 | W | Mario Rinaldi | KO/TKO | 1 |
| 2007 | W | Vince Lucero | KO/TKO | 1 |
| 2006 | L | Josh Curran | Decision | 3 |
| 2006 | W | Jerome Smith | Submission | 1 |
| 2006 | W | Jason Godsey | Submission | 1 |
| 2006 | W | Michael Buchkovich | Submission | 1 |
| 2004 | W | Ray Seraile | Submission | 2 |
| 2004 | W | Jerry Vrbanovic | Decision | 3 |
| undated | W | Bo Cantrell | Submission | — |
| undated | W | Justin Wren | Decision | 5 |
| undated | W | Kimbo Slice | KO/TKO | 2 |
31 of these opponents have their own page here.
SOURCE·Roy Nelson — English Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)·derived figures computed here·REVIEWED 2026-07-26
What is on record
| Reach | not recorded | |
|---|---|---|
| Height | 72″ (182.9 cm) | |
| Stance | Orthodox | |
| Division | Heavyweight MMA | |
| Most active decade | 2010s — 23 of 44 dated bouts | |
| Country | United States |
Wikipedia carries no reach figure for Roy Nelson, so the reach-advantage comparison this site is built on cannot be computed. Everything below comes from the record instead.
Record
MMA record
24–20
44 bouts on record
Finish rate
83%
of wins ended inside the distance — heavyweight MMA median 85%, 45th percentile
The career, bout by bout
47 recorded bouts from 2004 to 2023. Every incumbent shows this as a table you have to read; here it is as a shape you can see.
Career span
20y
2004–2023
Longest unbeaten run
6
without a loss — draws do not break it
Busiest year
2007
6 bouts
Recorded bouts
47
44 with a date
What this record does and does not say
- What is Roy Nelson's record?
- 24–20 in MMA. That is the aggregate stated in the English Wikipedia infobox; the results table on the same article lists 47 bouts individually.
- How many of Roy Nelson's bouts have no date?
- 3 of 47. The source lists them without a date this site can read, so they are printed with no year, sorted last, and drawn past the double rule in the record line rather than placed in the chronology. No year has been inferred for any of them.
- Does a no contest change a record here?
- No. A no contest is not a win, a loss or a draw, and it is never folded into one. It is counted and printed separately, so a 20–0 record with two no contests is shown as exactly that rather than as 22–0 or as 20–0 with the no contests dropped. The same applies to a bout overturned after the fact where the source records the change.
- What happens when sources disagree about a fight?
- This site publishes one source — the fighter's English Wikipedia article, read on the date printed under every table — and it does not silently reconcile that against anyone else's database. Where the article's own infobox total and its own results table disagree, both are shown and the page says which one each figure came from. Nothing is averaged, and no field is filled in from a second source to make a total balance.
Where this record leads
The 335 heavyweight MMA fighters this record is ranked against, and the distribution Nelson sits inside.
335 FIGHTERS 2010s MMA23 of these bouts fall in the 2010s. This is what the rest of that decade's records look like.
1,144 FIGHTERS Mirko Cro Cop vs Roy NelsonA bout both records confirm — set out side by side, with every opponent the two men have in common.
2011 Longest unbeaten runsRoy Nelson went 6 without a loss. This is where that sits against every run on the site.
LEADERBOARD