Keys to Victory: Alex Gilpin has the opportunity to make a statement at PFL 2
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On May 23rd, former Chosen Few Fighting Championship featherweight champion, Alex Gilpin, will be fighting Lance Palmer at PFL 2 in Long Island, New York.
Lets get right into some analysis for the fight:
His opponent, Lance Palmer, was the featherweight champion of PFL’s first season. Palmer is a four-time NCAA All-American and utilizes his high-level wrestling ability to dominate his opponents. He is also a pretty good striker, too. I wouldn’t say that he is known for his power, but he does well with keeping the pace and controlling distance on the feet. He does well with keeping his opponents at-bay and finding a way to control the center of the ring.
In his most recent contest, Palmer defeated Steven Siler to capture the featherweight championship at PFL 11. In his previous fight, he finally got his rematch with Andre Harrison, who took his title from him at World Series of Fighting 35. Harrison looked great in the contest and won the fight by unanimous decision.
In Gilpin’s most recent contest, he debuted on Dana White’s Tuesday Night Contender Series. In the fight, he defeated J.R. Coughran by second-round submission. Gilpin looked good in this fight, but something I’m sure he has been working on over the past year is his striking. His fight with Coughran was in August 2018 so he’s had a bit to prepare and really sharpen up his skills.
Now, let’s do some digging into Palmer’s first fight with Andre Harrison. I believe that this fight tells a lot about him as a fighter. Don’t get me wrong, Palmer is a great talent and I’m actually surprised he’s never fought in the UFC, but he showed weakness in the first fight with Harrison. One thing that I noticed, is Palmer is great at controlling distance. He was doing a good job of that in his title defense vs Harrison but once he began to feel pressured, he showed technical mistakes in his striking.
For example, towards the end of the first round, Harrison caught Palmer with a left hand and dropped him. Many of the judges were saying that this knockdown may have stole the round, in favor of Harrison. Now, what happened was, the two men were trading shots for a minute, Palmer was fighting a rather calculated fight, up to this point. Palmer went to throw his right hand and when he did that, he dropped his left hand, leaving himself exposed. Harrison took notice of this and landed a clean left hand shot, resulting in a quick knockdown. Palmer got back up rather quickly, but it definitely caught the eyes of the judges and may have swayed the round, in favor of Harrison.
This technical mistake, I believe was a result of Palmer feeling pressured and reacting in a split second. I would imagine that he’s watched the tape back and since worked on patching up that mistake with his boxing coaches. We will see.
Either way, I believe that this is something that Gilpin can expose in the fight.
In the first Palmer/Harrison fight, Palmer seemed to fade a bit as the fight got into the later rounds. There were moments where you would see him getting backed up towards the cage, having his hands down and getting caught with high kicks. I would also suggest that fatigue could play a major role in Gilpin’s success here. If he can nullify Palmer and establish his own pace early on in the fight, I think he will find a lot of good shots early.
In the second Palmer/Harrison fight, which took place on PFL’s platform, Palmer relied less on his striking and pretty much dominated the fight with his wrestling. His constant pressure completely nullified Harrison’s attack and wore him down. Palmer managed to grind his way through and landed a unanimous decision victory.
A very interesting thing about this fight is that both fighters are known for their ground game. Gilpin is 12-1 with 6 submission wins and Palmer is 17-3 with 8 submission wins. This is going to be excellent.
I believe that if Gilpin has worked on his striking this camp and can land some clean shots early, he will be able to integrate that with his jiu-jitsu game and find a submission. Palmer is a very durable fighter and definitely will not go out easy. He is/was the PFL 1 featherweight champion for a reason. The guy is legit. So I think the fight definitely makes it into the third round, where I believe Gilpin will take over and land a clean submission on Palmer.
In the end, my overall prediction for the fight’s outcome: Alex Gilpin will win by third-round submission.
You really don’t want to miss this fight. It goes down live on ESPN2!
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