Saturday night the UFC invades Orlando, Florida for UFC on FOX 11. This card is a legitimate gem and every fighter with a scheduled bout will be looking to make a statement, and that goes double for Eagle Creek, Oregon’s own, Pat “Bam Bam” Healy. Healy is coming off of back-to-back losses for the first time since 2006. With recent cuts of top tier fighters from the UFC after just a loss or two, winning this weekend’s bout will be paramount for the native Oregonian. I had a chance to talk with Pat about his upcoming fight and how his training camp had gone. Healy seemed to be keeping his thoughts on the positive.
“Training has gone great. I feel like I have [gotten] back to what made me successful and that is a lot of wrestling. I am now training at Rose City FC there is a great atmosphere here.”
Healy will be looking to use that return to wrestling to right the ship this weekend in Orlando. His current stint in the UFC has not gone as many people had expected. Healy’s first match up saw him take out top lightweight contender, Jim Miller, in an exciting and emphatic fashion. Unfortunately, the celebration was short lived as Healy’s win was ruled a no-contest after a failed drug test showed he had tested positive for marijuana. Looking at the bright side, that win would have been 7 wins in a row with Healy still looking the part of contender. However, over the next 8 months, Healy would go on to lose back to back decisions setting him up for a must win bout this weekend with one time Strikeforce title challenger, Jorge Masvidal. When asked if the added pressure was something that was weighing on him Healy again put the emphasis on the positive.
“I feel a little more pressure than I have felt in a while, but I feel like I used it as a positive in my training camp. It pushed me to work extra hard and stay focused on one of my goals of getting back into the 10 in the world at lightweight.”
Healy has all the tools to capitalize on this weekend’s opportunity. Training at Rose City FC, Healy has the advantage of being coached by an incredibly experienced staff with some outstanding wrestlers. Having coaches and training partners like Mark Tracy, Ian Loveland, Dave Jansen, and Mike Pierce there to help grow Healy’s already strong wrestling game is an asset that should payoff in spades. As a fast starter who pushes the pace, Healy will likely look to take this fight to the ground and keep Masvidal in positions that he is not comfortable in.
Jorge Masvidal is a fighter whose career has been up and down. At his best, Masvidal is a striker with great take down defense that can knock out an opponent with his well-timed striking. At his worst, Masvidal is susceptible to the takedowns of top-level grapplers and will let these opponents grind out decision wins. A veteran with big show experience, Masvidal has fought for the UFC, Strikeforce, Bellator Fighting, and Sengoku. Over his last four bouts, Masvidal has been impressive amassing a 3-1 record. His only loss was a three round fight of the night performance against the highly regarded Rustam Khabilov, a Russian Combat Sambo champion. So even though Masvidal is coming off of a loss, it seems that he is the hotter of the two fighters coming into Saturday’s fight. If Masvidal wants to keep his momentum swinging forward, he will have to use his footwork to control the distance against the hard charging Healy.
This fight may very well be a career-defining bout for Pat Healy. It seems that even though he’s lost two fights in a row, he is competing at a higher level over the last 3 years than he has at any other point in his career. For a fighter with the experience of Healy (he has 50 professional fights) to still be progressing and performing at such a high level is not common. It is refreshing to see a fighter with over a decade of professional experience looking to improve his game and turn a negative situation into a positive one. Pat Healy will need his wrestling to be sharp and his striking to be crisp if he hopes to come back home to Oregon with his job intact and a W in the win column. So this weekend show some support for your homegrown Oregon boy, Pat “Bam Bam” Healy while he fights for his future with the UFC.
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