Late bloomer Nover’s day has arrived

LAS VEGAS – Phillipe Nover had tried out twice previously for “The Ultimate Fighter” and both times was rejected.

The registered nurse rejoiced when he finally was chosen on his third try, but he hadn’t so much as had a chance to shake hands with the other fighters when he was suddenly facing the possibility of returning to nursing.

A Brooklyn, N.Y. native, Nover fainted in the opening minutes of the opening day of taping. Far from being sympathetic, UFC president Dana White, the man who twice previously had opted to bypass Nover for the show, laughed at him when he learned Nover would be all right.

White immediately dubbed him “Fainting Phillipe” and had all but dismissed him a third time.

Then, a strange thing happened.

The fights began. And suddenly, White was stunned by what he saw.

White has had two world champions (Forrest Griffin and Matt Serra) out of the show’s first seven seasons and several others have become among the company’s core group of stars. White was never as effusive in his praise of any of the previous contestants, though, as he was regarding the man he had derided in Season 8’s opening minutes.

White phoned a reporter during the show’s taping in the summer and exclaimed exuberantly that he had just found the next Anderson Silva.

Given White’s regard for Silva, the UFC middleweight champion and the top-ranked fighter in the Yahoo! Sports pound-for-pound poll, he could deliver no more significant compliment.

“When you hear something like that, obviously it makes you proud, but it’s also a little intimidating or overwhelming, I guess, because this is Anderson Silva we’re talking about and that’s huge to have to live up to,” said Nover, who will fight Efrain Escudero on Saturday in The Pearl at the Palms for the TUF 8 lightweight title live on Spike TV.

Nover still has much to prove, but after choking out Joseph Duarte and Dave Kaplan and submitting George Roop with a Kimura, he has become the show’s biggest sensation.

There have been baseball players touted as the “next Ted Williams” who haven’t gotten 400 hits in their careers, let alone batted .400 in one season as the “Splendid Splinter” did in 1941. Nover understands that and he’s tried to keep his position in the scheme of things in focus. This is a kid with his feet planted firmly on the ground.

“Anderson Silva is a beast and a tremendously well-rounded guy who has been doing this for years,” Nover said. “I still consider myself a small little fish in this huge, vast ocean. I’m not even going to dare compare myself with a guy like Anderson. If I can be even remotely as successful as he is one day, I would consider that a major victory.”

Each of Nover’s three victories on the show came by submission, but it’s his striking that stands out. He has the natural punching and kicking power to hurt anyone he faces and which could set him apart from other jiu-jitsu black belts.

He had to survive a zany season in the house in which much of the focus was on Junie Browning’s drinking and wild antics.

Some of the, ahem, highlights of Season 8 included Tom Lawlor urinating in his fruit to pay back those who were eating it before he had a chance to; and Dave Kaplan, a lightweight, begging Lawlor, a light heavyweight, to punch him on the chin to prove he couldn’t be knocked out. Lawlor obliged by putting Kaplan to sleep with a right on the chin while the two were in the bathroom.

It’s the kind of lowbrow entertainment that turns many off and takes the spotlight away from gifted fighters such as Nover.

“It turned out to be more of a frat house,” Nover said. “It turned out to be a bunch of dudes who were like college dudes living in a house together. I blended in and, thankfully, I didn’t get into any of the conflicts or anything like that. It was a messy house, but I just separated myself from the scene.

“I didn’t really need the spotlight from that kind of stuff. When there was negativity going around, I usually wasn’t there. I went to sleep early and I woke up early and I was lucky to miss a lot of the nonsense. I was there to train and fight and take notes from these world champions who were teaching us.”

Nover has given up full-time nursing and only works once in a while as a way to concentrate on his burgeoning fight career. But given the pressure that White placed upon him, anything other than a victory Saturday over Escudero will deem him a failure in the eyes of many.

Nover, 24, professes much respect for Escudero and said a victory over him would be significant in and of itself, let alone the impact it would have in terms of delivering him a UFC contract.

“Efrain is an adaptive animal and if you watch him closely, you can see that he’s able to adapt to any situation and strategize and come up with a game plan to win a fight,” Nover said. “I have to take him very seriously. He’s totally different than Roop and Kaplan and everyone else I’ve fought. The last four or five months of my life have been spent thinking of nothing but how to beat Efrain.”

Nover is about a 5-1 favorite, so bookmakers are taking him as seriously as White does. But words aren’t going to make him a star. He needs to perform, and he insists he understands that.

“You can get all the hype or whatever, but sooner or later you have to step into that cage and prove yourself,” Nover said. “Guys who are nothing but hype will get exposed pretty quickly in there. I just want to be as prepared as I can be for each fight and try to get better every day, so that I can be the fighter people think I can be.”