As He Rockets Up the Ranks, Lance Palmer Takes Aim at WSOF Featherweight Championship

If you ask featherweight standout Lance “The Party” Palmer what he’s most pleased with in his career, you would expect him to mention his seven-fight undefeated streak, but it’s not.

For Palmer, the thing he’s most happy with is the fact that he’s been able to use his time outside the cage in the most productive manner possible.

“More importantly, outside the fights, I’ve been better at the gym and that’s really what it’s all about is getting better in between fights and progressing after each fight and learning from each fight,” said Palmer. “I felt like I’ve done that so far and especially this year off the two fights I’ve had.”

Most recently, Palmer had a five-round war with fellow up-and-comer Jared Downing in the RFA in June. It’s that fight he felt like he especially learned a lot in.

“It was good for me because it was a fight where I wanted to showcase a little bit of my striking and I did that,” Palmer told MMAWeekly.com. “I might have gotten caught up in it a little too much instead of working my takedowns and controlling the ground game where I’m good.

“It was a five-round battle where (Downing) was attacking the whole time while I was attacking the whole time, so it was a good to have that experience in the cage – going 25 minutes against a guy who is tough like him, who just comes forward and doesn’t give you much time to rest.”

Palmer (7-0) is set to face an even tougher challenge in his next bout, as he’s stepping up into the World Series of Fighting to face veteran Georgi Karakhanyan (22-3-1) for the promotion’s 145-pound championship on Dec. 7 in Vancouver.

“I know Georgi’s tough. He’s been around for a long time and is pretty structured in his striking and pretty good on the ground, so I have to go out there and get him tired and push the pace and stay in good position the whole time,” said Palmer. “I can’t go out there and get wild and sloppy on him.

“I’m going to go out there with the mentality to attack and go after him and make him uncomfortable. In previous fights I’ve seen with him, if you make him uncomfortable he starts to get out of position and starts to do things he normally doesn’t do, and that’s when people make mistakes.”

Constantly working to improve and move forward in his career, Palmer is looking to do the same in this fight and beyond.

“Every fight is the biggest fight of your career. So this is the biggest fight of my career as of right now,” said Palmer. “Moving forward from this, you look at it as wanting to go out there and win that inaugural WSOF title and hold the belt and continue to move on and face tough competition.

“You don’t fight to fight the worst people just so you can win; you want to fight people who are going to push you and be competitive against you that you can test your skills against. That’s what the sport’s all about.”