Justin “The Silverback" Wilcox Vs Rodrigo Damm: SHOMMA preview
By Ben Bieker
Justin “The Silverback” Wilcox (10-3-1) vs. Rodrigo Damm (9-4-0)
Phil Baroni’s tanning partner should not have trouble in this fight. He has only fallen into traps when taking on fighters who have a strong submission game. Two of his losses come from BJJ black belts, and while Rodrigo is a black belt it seems Justin has fixed that problem. In his last fight he took on Vitor Ribeiro, a better ground fighter that Rodrigo, and didn’t get submitted. Justin also can dictate where the fight takes place because of his strong wrestling background. He could eliminate the threat of a ground game completely by not going there.
Rodrigo has a chance to win, but it would definitely be an upset. A fighter who goes 1-3 in his last couple of fights is a dangerous person to go against when you are on a streak. You do not know what they will pull out to get a win. If Rodrigo goes for broke here he does have a chance but beyond a flash knockout he may not have the ability to win. Rodrigo is not the biggest guy for the division either; Justin is a big 155 equaling the size of Phil Baroni who fights at 185.
The Bottom Line: Justin is on the rise while Rodrigo needs to figure out his game before he keeps taking fights. Justin’s power will finish the fight in the second round.
Co-Main Event:
Caros “The Future” Fodor (7-2-0) vs. David “Tarzan” Douglas (8-2-0)
David is a tough fighter who has only ever lost when he has fought some of the better fighters of the lightweight division. His losses were both by submission also, showing his one weakness. While he does have a weakness on the ground he has very strong standup knocking out Malaipet who is a world class kick boxer. Caros is the exact opposite. While one of his losses is by submission he is at his strongest when on the ground. He has 6 of his 7 wins by submission. This shows that he would want the fight to his the ground while David wants to keep it standing up. This will make the main battle of the fight in the clinch. Even if David does not fight from the clinch Caros will bring it there as he tries to bring it down to the ground.
The Bottom Line: This fight will go to a decision as the fighters jockey for position the whole fight. David takes it as he has been in with better fighters and Caros is not on that level yet.
Lorenz Larkin (8-0-0) vs. Scott Lighty (6-1-0)
Two words to describe this fight, standup war. They have a combined 10 knockouts between their fourteen wins. Lighty honed his skills with UFC hall of famer Chuck Liddell. These two will not be hitting the ground unless one starts to get the better of the standup. Lorenz has been shown to have more diverse standup having wins by head kick and elbows, but since Scott has spent much time at The Pit he most likely has a diverse striking game also. Lighty also has more experience in the fight game having been a professional kick bower for a long time also. The facts are evident that this fight should not reach a decision and should end much earlier.
The Bottom Line: Lorenz has not been defeated yet, but he has not also faced a striker like Scott. He will make trouble early, but he will fade and the experienced striker will take the fight by third round knockout.
Josh Thornburg (6-2-0) vs. James Terry (9-2-0)
Josh has taken this fight on short notice, is coming off a loss, and fought less than a month ago. These are all things counting against him coming into this fight. In that loss he was absolutely throttled also. It was not some fight where he was quickly submitted; No, he took three rounds of pounding from his opponent. I saw James fight his last fight, and he tossed his opponent around. He didn’t need much time to finish that fight. Maybe he will finish this fight in similar fashion, or Josh could redeem himself for his disappointing loss.
The Bottom Line: James will take this by second round TKO because that will be as long as Josh can hold out for.