Ricardo Lamas Is Ready To Take The Next Step

This article was originally posted on MMA Madness

Lightweight prospect Ricardo Lamas kicked his WEC career off with a bang. The All-American wrestler was called on five-days notice to take on seasoned veteran Bart Palaszewski at WEC 39. Lamas accepted the fight and dominated Palaszewski with his overwhelming wrestling base.

The win upped Lamas’ undefeated professional MMA record to 6-0. He will return to the cage Aug. 9 at WEC 42 to take on fellow up-and-comer Danny Castillo on the televised portion of the card.

Some fighters allow their undefeated records to get the better of them. They become so worried with maintaining their perfect streak that the pressure eventually gets the better of them. Lamas is not worried at all about his record. His main focus is competition.

“Records don’t mean anything to me, so there is no extra pressure,” Lamas told MMAMadness.com. “I go out to every fight and concentrate on performing. If I go out there and perform to best of my ability and leave everything in the cage, then win or lose, I’ll be happy with myself.”

Castillo is also an All-American wrestler who has used his strong wrestling base effectively inside the WEC cage. His only loss was to one of the WEC’s best lightweights in Donald “Cowboy” Cerrone and it was a fight that Castillo took on short notice.

This is a huge fight for both fighters, and the winner will catapult themselves up the WEC lightweight rankings. Style-wise it is a tough fight to predict, with both competitors coming from such great wrestling backgrounds.

By no means should either fighter be considered one dimensional, but wrestling is the strongest weapon in their arsenals. It will be interesting to see where this fight will take place, their wrestling could be so evenly matched that they cancel each other out.

Lamas explained that you’ll either see a competitive battle for ground positioning or a stand up war.

“Well, this fight can go two ways. One, you’ll see a lot of good scrambles on the ground or two, we’ll end up banging it out on the feet,” Lamas said.

Either way, Lamas is expecting a tough fight against a game opponent. He has trained extremely hard and will be coming into the cage at WEC 42 focused and ready to go.

 “I expect that Danny is [going to] be very prepared for the fight, he comes from a great camp and I’ll be ready for whatever he brings to the table.”

Lamas may be an excellent wrestler but he’s also quite talented in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. He is a purple belt under Jeff Neal and has some very crafty submissions under his sleeve. One would think he would have a better chance of finishing the fight with a submission than a knockout, but Lamas is confident he can end the fight anywhere at any given time.

“I think I can win the fight on the ground or standing, I’m ready for whatever.”

Lamas believes that he has already set himself up as a lightweight to look out for with the performance he put on in his last fight.

“I think I am already a 155er to watch out for. In my WEC debut I beat an experienced veteran with over 40 pro fights who was gunning for a title shot, and I did it on five-days notice,” Lamas said.

One thing is for sure. Win, lose, or draw, Lamas is destined for great things.

Mitch Ciccarelli is a staff writer at MMAMadness.com. He can be reached with questions and comments at [e-mail].