WEC 47 Preview
by Carlos Santana

Karen Darabedyan 9-1 -205 vs Bart Palaszewski 33-13 +165

Darabedyan is riding a 7 fight win streak and his only career loss was a decision to Koji Oishi in which they fought in the very same venue as the famed Mohammad Ali vs Joe Frazier fought. With wins over Joe Camacho and his most recent win over Razor Rob McCullough, Karen is riding some serious momentum and really surprised many with his quickness and striking abilities. Known more as a grappler, Karen was a high ranking amateur Judoka growing up and trains with Judo Gene LeBell, Manny Gamburyan, and Karo Parisyan at the Main Event Gym and Hayastan MMA Academy.

Bart P, The Team Curran fighter, holds a ton of pro experience under his belt and a lot of pop in his punches. He has losses to some of the sports best in Cole Escovedo, Gesias Cavalcante, Clay Guida, Chris Horodecki, Deividas Taurosevicius, Jim Miller, Ricardo Lamas and Anthony Njokuani as well as wins over Luke Caudillo, Joe Jordan, Steve Bruno, Marcio Feitosa, Ivan Menjivar, Ryan Schultz, John Gunderson, Alex Karalexis, and Anthony Pettis. With most of his wins coming by TKO, Bart can throw leather.

A very polished judoka and a very well rounded MMArtist look to open up the evenings events with a very exciting fight. Bart will want to establish his striking early and look to impose his will on the younger fighter, in hopes of breaking his spirit early. Expect a ton of head movement and a long feeling out process as Karen tries to find his range and get his self into advantageous positions on the clinch before trying to take the fight to the ground. Bart will land the stronger strikes early, taking some of the bounce out of Karen’s step, but ultimately, Karen’s attack will get inside Bart’s reach and wear down the veteran fighter with a punishing clinch and ground game en route to a decision win.

L.C. Davis 15-2 (-125) vs Deividas Taurosevicius 12-3 (-105)

Davis has fought with the IFL, Affliction, Sengoku and the WEC. Opening up with a 9-0 record with a win over Conor Huen, LC faced off with the very dangerous Wagnney Fabiano and was caught with an armbar. Davis bounced back with wins over Rafael Dias, Josh Bernal, Billy Kidd and Bao Quach before being upset by Michihiro Omigawa in the Sengoku FW Grand Prix. Shortly after that loss he joined the WEC and put together solid outings over Javier Vazquez and Diego Nunes. The former Platt College wrestling coach has trained with the Miletich camp and split his camp between Des Moines MMA with Josh Neer and Gil Martinez and the crew at Xtreme Couture. A very stout and solid wrestler, LC will be looking to establish his stand up before nailing a takedown and bringing fists from above with solid GNP.

With losses to Mike Acosta, Frankie Edgar, and Ryan Schultz and wins over Anthony Morrison, Dan Lauzon, Savant Young, Bart P, Javier Velazquez, and Mackens Semerzier, Deividas has some experience with talented opponents. The former Lithuanian professional rugby player holds a 4-striped BJJ brown belt and formerly trained with Renzo Gracie before opening up his own gym.

With two very skilled veteran fighters, this looks to be a very good technical battle with a either a lot of ground work coming into play or too much respect for each other’s ground games that a standup battle ensues. Davis is a solid wrestler and Deividas a strong BJJ practitioner, both have solid standup but LC’s ability to control the pace and range of the fight will prove to be the difference as he does enough damage on the ground and avoids pratfalls to secure a decision win.

Jens ‘Little Evil (Eagle)’ Pulver 20-12-1 +145 vs Javier ‘Showtime’ Vazqeuz 13-4 -175

Pulver, the son of an abusive and alcoholic horse jockey father, is an early pioneer of the sport. Jens is a 2-time state HS wrestling champ, NJCAA All-American and alumni of Boise State U where he briefly wrestled before earning his degree in Criminal Justice. Boasting wins over Joe Stevenson, Phil Johns, Joao Roque and John Lewis, Pulver was invited to fight for the first ever UFC Bantamweight (later renamed Lightweight) title against Caol Uno. Scoring a majority decision, the southpaw slugger went on to defend his strap against Dennis Hallman and BJ Penn. Pulver then left the UFC and scored a win over Rob Emerson before falling victim to Duane Ludwig. Pulver bounced around from Shooto to Pride to the IFL and back to the UFC where he coached opposite BJ Penn on TUF5. Along the way he dropped fights to Takanori Gomi, Hayato Sakurai, and Joe Lauzon and wins over Joe Jordan, Kenji Arai, and Cole Escovedo before meeting Penn and succumbing to a rear naked choke. Pulver then dropped to 145lbs and headed to the WEC where he choked out Cub Swanson to earn a title match with Urijah Faber. In an extremely exciting 5 round match, Faber handed Jens a decision loss and started his current 4-fight skid in which he suffered a TKO loss to Leonard Garcia and a pair of guillotine submission losses to each Faber and John Grispi. A very emotional Pulver went on to announce his intention to retire but later retracted that and resumed training in Boise with Tony Fryklund.

Javier Vazquez opened his pro career with a loss before putting together an impressive 9-fight win streak which included a win over Rumino Sato. Vazquez then dropped a very close decision to Alberto Crane before winning a close one with Rob Emerson which started another streak of 4 wins. Vazquez’s next fight saw him making his debut against LC Davis in which a split decision went against him. Vazquez’s last fight also went to the judges and 2 out of 3 saw it against him as he dropped another loss to Deividas Taurosevicius. The Erik Paulson trained fighter holds a BJJ black belt and is looking to stop his two fight skid.

Both fighters badly need a win here and will be fighting with all they have to earn it in what looks to be a pretty evenly matched fight. Pulver throws heavy leather and has a very well rounded attack that you would expect from a 10+ year veteran. Vazquez hopes to keep the Little Eagle grounded by out-grappling him and avoiding any big left hands to the face. It seems like Vasquez keeps it close with his opponents, so look for him to play it safe and do just enough for the win and possibly another very emotional goodbye from Pulver.

Joseph Benavidez 11-1 (+240) vs Miguel Angel Torres 37-2 (-300)

Benavidez was a New Mexico State Wrestling champion and wrestled at the collegiate level for one year at William Penn U. With aspirations of becoming a full time MMArtist, Benavidez traveled to Rosedale, CA in hopes of meeting Urijah Faber. Benavidez showed up and impressed many at Faber’s gym, but Faber was nowhere to be seen and the dejected Benavidez went on to the airport without his meeting with Faber when by chance, his flight back to New Mexico was cancelled. Faber was able to meet with him and offered him a desk job at the gym and a spot to train with Master Thong alongside Justin Bucholz, Chad Mendes, Danny Castillo. With that motivation Joe continued his 8 fight win streak which included a win over Maurice Eazel and Junya Kudo (who stepped in for Kid Yamamoto) before earning an invite to the WEC. With wins over Danny Martinez and Jeff Curran, Benavidez was on his way to a title fight before a loss to Dominick Cruz set him back. In Benavidez’s last fight, he was matched up with dangerous BJJ practitioner Rani Yahya, but controlled the brief fight en route to a 95 second TKO win.

Miguel Angel Torres got his start in MMA by fighting on small unsanctioned fights in nightclubs. Somewhere along the way he started fighting legit and eventually earned the Ironheart and Total Fight Challenge belts and hooked up with famed BJJ guru, Carlson Gracie Gracie took Torres under his wing and saw much promise in the scrappy Mexican, even taking him to Brazil and declaring a Gracie challenge that no 135 lb fighter in the world could beat his student. With no lucrative offers coming from that challenge, Torres continued to obliterate the local Indiana MMA scene and put together an amazing run, dismantling opponents and earning a 32-1 record with his only loss avenged and coming off an ACL surgery. At first, Torres fought to put himself through classes at Purdue U, where he graduated with a degree in marketing, but the reality that fighting was his calling set in and Torres pursued MMA as a career. In Torres’ first fight with the WEC, he submitted Jeff Bedard and issued a challenge to 135 lb champ Chase Beebe. The two would meet up in Feb of 2008 with Torres showcasing exceptional striking skills and his BJJ black belt skills under Carlson Gracie. The mulleted Mexican mauler would extend his title reign with impressive wins over Yoshihiro Maeda, Manny Tapia, and Takeya Mizugaki before falling to current champ Brian Bowles and ending his winning streak at 17.

With both guys coming in off of losses and hungry to get their shot at the title, Torres has been there and knows what it takes to get the job done. Look for Miguel to come out lean, mean and ready to go from the first blast of the mariachi’s trumpet. Torres will look to utilizing his crazy reach advantage by touching Joe with his jab, which he recently honed with his new buddy, Miguel Cotto, and throwing a wide variety of kicks to control the distance. While Joe has the better wrestling of the two, Miguel’s very dangerous ground game leaves very little room for error on Joe’s part. I would expect to see Joe completely outclassed by a very focused, hungry, and revitalized Torres who is gunning for the title, soon.

Bantamweight Champion Brian Bowles 8-0 (-240) vs Dominick ‘Dominator’ Cruz 14-1 (+190)

With Bowles’ huge win over previous Bantamweight kingpin Miguel Torres, Bowles has catapulted to the #1 ranked BW and #10 in the P4P rankings. A very stout and solid wrestler, Bowles works with Rory and Adam Singer at The Hardcore Gym in Athens, GA and has rounded out his MMA game with sound striking and an underrated ground game. With consecutive wins over Charlie Valencia, Marcos Galvao, Damacio Page, and Will Ribeiro, Bowles rode his wave of quiet success to a shocking KO win over Torres to earn the belt.

Cruz put together a 9-0 record in regional cards throughout Arizona and Southern California before being brought in to challenge then Featherweight king, Urijah Faber. Faber soundly beat Cruz in a title match and Cruz went off to rebound in a regional show with a KO win. The Dominator made his way back to the WEC as a Bantamweight with a string of wins over Charlie Valencia, Ian McCall, Ivan Lopez and Faber protégé, Joseph Benavidez. Now poised to take on Bowles for the belt, the Alliance MMA fighter has been working his boxing and wrestling with guys like Mark Munoz, Big Nog, Brandon Vera and Shannon Gugerty.

While Bowles has catapulted onto MMA fans radars with his performance against Miguel Torres, Cruz has quietly climber the ranks and looks springboard his career with a win over the quiet country boy. Bowles Cruz has the motor, the speed, the reach, and the heart to give Bowles trouble, but Bowles’ heavy hands and sneaky power will be too much and overwhelm the Dominator as the pressure proves to be too much too soon for Cruz and he makes a mistake that Bowles is all too happy to capitalize on.

©2010 Zewkey.com