Strikeforce Challengers 14: Beerbohm vs. Healy Preview

(Photo courtesy of Strikeforce and Showtime MMA)

Strikeforce lights up Austin, Texas this Friday, February 18 at the Cedar Park Center with it’s ShoMMA: Challengers 14 fight card. Featured in the main event, undefeated slick submission artist “Fancy Pance” Lyle Beerbohm (15-0) steps in against the well rounded veteran that is “Bam Bam” Patrick Healy (20-15) with both martial artists looking to take a step closer to being a lightweight title contender. The co-main event for the evening features the highly regarded “Natural Light” Ryan Couture (1-0) attempting to live up to his father’s name – UFC Hall of Famer and multiple-time champion “The Natural” Randy Couture (19-10) – by taking on Lee Higgins (2-0) a practically unknown fighter who has an outstanding ground game and hails out of Houston, Texas. The main card also showcases three other bouts with the likes of Brazilian-born and current Bryan, Texas resident Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu black belt and Judo brown belt Carlo Prater (24-8-1) versus NCAA wrestler Bryan Travers (12-2), Vale Tudo fighter “Bad Apple” Erik Apple (10-2) taking on Houston native and BJJ brown belt Ryan Larson (5-2), and Cesar Gracie Academy kickboxer David Douglas (5-2) vs. Austin’s all around fighter “The Ghost” Nick Gonzalez (16-9). All in all, Challengers 14 offers a solid night of outstanding prospects looking to make waves in the lower ranks of the Strikeforce promotion.

While every fighter on a Challengers card holds interest for the MMA community simply as a preview of the potential fighters of the future, the main and co-main events of Friday night’s card hold a particular interest. In the main event is the battle tested, undefeated Lyle Beerbohm who many would say belongs on the Strikeforce primary roster if not in the UFC as a new blood prospect. The case is made by his stellar run of 13 finishes in 15 fights with wins over “Shaolin” Vitor Ribeiro (20-5) and UFC veterans “Bang” Duane Ludwig (20-11) and “Tractor” Rafaello Oliveira (10-3) as well as his 3-0 record with the Strikeforce promotion so far. The same could be said of his opponent who, while he has a more pedestrian record, still holds several high profile victories of his own over former and current UFC fighters. The co-main holds interest for a more pure reason: it pits two up-and-coming submission specialists against one another in a bout to see who is more deserving of a shot at bigger game. It is always an entertaining prospect when two men with the same specialty and strengths test their mettle against one another. The question in this bout will be how much of a factor the superior training at Xtreme Couture will play in the favor of Ryan Couture.

The preliminaries are as follows:
Thomas Diagne (0-2) vs. Aaron Lan Franco (2-0)
Drew Pendleton (2-0) vs. Dennis Dombrow (1-0)
John Hester (2-0) vs. Luis Vega (3-2)