Steve Carl Says He Is Facing His Fears By Fighting Rousimar Palhares

WSOF welterweight champion Steve Carl will face the sternest test of his career to date, as he prepares to go up against Rousimar Palhares this Saturday. ‘Toquinho’ is known for his nasty submission game, and in particular his heel hook. The Brazilian grappler has scored 11 submission wins from 15 wins overall.

It should be noted that Carl has won his last seven straight, and all have come by submission. Fighting out of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Carl feels that limited resources have limited the amount of time he has spent on heel hook defense in training. Check out what he said to MMAJunkie:

“I didn’t have the resources Alan Belcher had,” he said. “I didn’t have world-class guys attacking my legs, so if I had a bunch of fighters who aren’t proficient in attacking my legs, then really, I’m just giving myself a false hope that I know what I’m doing when I get in that position with somebody who’s as skilled as Palhares.”

Although ‘Paul Harris’ is renowned for his vicious leglocks, he has fallen short against more superior strikers in the past. Back to back T/KO losses in the UFC came against Alan Belcher and Hector Lombard. Palhares was actually setting up for his patented submission when Belcher TKO’d him, so maybe Carl could learn something from that.

“You grow as a person when you face your fear,” he said. “You grow as a fighter, but you grow as a person. This is the scariest guy I’ve ever gotten in the cage with, but I’m feeling great, and I’m ready to face this challenge.”

“I didn’t sit there and pretend like in seven or eight weeks, I’m going to become this world-class leglocker and I’m going to have this defense to stop a guy that’s been doing it his entire life,” Carl said. “I don’t want to go into this fight only worried about a heel hook. I want to go into this fight trying to knock him out or choke him out. So I worked on me, just like always.”

WSOF 9 is set to go down this Saturday, March 29, and will feature Yushin Okami’s debut against Svetlozar Savov, Josh Burkman vs. Tyler Stinson and Marlon Moraes vs. Josh Rettinghouse. With Carl vs. Palhares at the top of the card, this could well be the promotion’s best card to date.