Gunnar Nelson on Dancing to Justin Bieber and Dealing with Pressure

Gunnar Nelson's latest video post along with a dancing troupe of his teammates to celebrate another anniversary at Icelandic MMA HQ, Mjolnir, made quite an impression on social media threads earlier this week.

Last year, the Reykjavík crew put out a ballet inspired parody of Sia's 2014 hit 'Chandelier'. This time around they traded their ballet pumps for a more street inspired routine as they twerked and strutted their stuff to Justin Bieber banger 'Sorry'.

Following on from their first anniversary video, Nelson has reinvented himself like a young David Bowie as he showcased a variety of new dance floor techniques to the watching world to the Bieber chart-topper.

When first asked, 'Gunni' was confident that he was the best mover that appeared in the film, before he quickly remembered that the honor belongs to his father, Halli, who also appears in the viral video.

"Of course I'm the best dancer in the gym, you've seen the video right?" he laughed from his Icelandic stronghold.

"Actually, to be honest, I should probably give that title to my Dad. Everybody seems to be loving his moves the most, you know, so it's my Dad."

The Icelandic submission specialist explained that the music videos coincide with the team's annual anniversary celebrations, and that fans can expect a new video each year.

"It's like an annual party that we have," he explained. "It's become something that we do now, so every time our anniversary comes around we like to do a music video. It just happened to be Justin Beiber this time around. You can all expect one every year from us around this time."

Like last year's rendition of 'Chandelier', Mjolnir's reimagining of 'Sorry' has already won them a lot of praise. Although MMA is bigger than ever in terms of an audience, the sport still comes under a lot of criticism. Mjolnir's parody videos show that the typical life of an MMA fighter isn't all revolved around combat, and it also drives home the fact that a lot of the athletes don't always take themselves too seriously.

Nelson can appear very stoic at times, so the dance inspired videos fly in the face of a lot of peoples' impressions of the jiu jitsu black belt. As far as Gunni is concerned, the videos that the gym release to the public are all about fun because being playful and having a good time is one of the central themes at Mjolnir.

He said: "It's really important not to take yourself too seriously. These kinds of things where we're all messing around and having fun, it's good for everyone. It's good for us in the gym, and we hope people have fun watching it too.

"To be honest, that's the type of fun we're always having at Mjolnir. We're always messing about and playing, it's what we do most in there. We're all really good friends too and that helps to create that kind of atmosphere. It's more than friends, it's family."

Choosing Justin Bieber as their backing song is a very interesting selection to say the least. I doubt any MMA fans imagine Nelson getting home from a hard day of training and switching on some of the musings of the 22-year-old superstar to help him relax.

"I'm not really a fan, but he's cool," said Nelson on Bieber. "I suppose he has a few decent songs, but they're not the kind of songs that you're going to find on my playlist any time soon."

So there's definitely no chance of him walking out to 'Sorry' the next time we see him make the walk to the Octagon?

"No, no, no," he replied.

Nelson finds himself in a situation he has only been in once before during his career in the lead up to his awesome European welterweight clash with knockout artist Albert Tumenov. The bout will be beamed around the world on UFC Fight Pass on May 8 from the Ahoy Rotterdam arena.

Having picked up the second loss of his career against Demian Maia at UFC 189, Gunni is focusing on "embracing the future" instead of dwelling on his defeat having learned from his mistakes against the Brazilian jiu jitsu legend.

"I feel pressure going in to every single one of my fights. There is always pressure, and that's mostly in your head. The fight is always going to take place, and that's what you're training for. Whatever is around it, whatever is in the past and whatever the future might hold—these are things that you can't obsess about.

"I just let it flow, and I think that's what's best. It's good to have goals and dreams. It's good to learn from your experiences too, but obsessing over those things is never a good idea and it will usually cause you stress and pain.

"I'm moving forward, I'm going into this fight having learned from my mistakes. I'm embracing the future."