UFC Fight Night 29's Mike Pierce out to 'prove that I'm a main-card guy'

Mike Pierce is going into hostile territory when he fights Brazilian Rousimar Palhares at UFC Fight Night 29, but in a way, he’s already there.

That’s if you look at the trajectory of his UFC career, which remains a preliminary-card purgatory despite finishes in two of his past fights.

“I know that some of my fights in the past have been a little slow, and haven’t been the most exciting, which I get,” Pierce told MMAjunkie.com Radio. “They want to see the guys that have the fights that are more exciting. But I think in the last few fights, I’ve had fights that had finishes that were more dramatic and what people want to see.”

Pierce (17-5 MMA, 9-3 UFC) hopes that finishing Palhares (14-5 MMA, 7-4 UFC), who makes his welterweight debut on the Oct. 9 event at Jose Correa Arena in Barueri, Sao Paulo, Brazil, is the key to breaking onto the main cards of UFC events. Over the past few fights, he said he’s modified his style to make it more pleasing to the promotion’s matchmakers and executives.

Earlier in his UFC tenure, Pierce tried to get himself more press by calling out and insulting Brazilian fighters. Now, he’s exclusively targeting opponents with a higher ranking, even if unsuccessful. Jake Shields, the opponent he called out following a second-round TKO of David Mitchell, is headlining next week’s event.

When he heads to the octagon to meet Palhares, he won’t need to say anything to get the crowd riled up – foreign fighters are universally booed.

That might be the fun part of a less than ideal fight.

“None of that stuff bothers me, and if anything, it will make me smile when they get all upset when I walk down the aisle to the cage,” Pierce said.

Pierce currently is ranked at No. 10 on USA Today/MMAjunkie.com’s MMA welterweight rannkings list but is fighting an opponent that is unranked both at middleweight and welterweight and lost his past two fights.

The bout would have been on the Facebook-streamed preliminary-card of next week’s event had a featherweight bout between Rony Jason and Jeremy Stephens not been scratched due to injuries.

Asked why he still toils on the lower-tier of attractions, Pierce quipped, “I don’t know,” then laughed, “They don’t like me. They hate me.”

Palhares, then, offers another opportunity to change the UFC’s mind. Pierce plans to be successful in the fight, but also provide the space to be exciting.

“Still doing the stuff that works, but also finding those opportunities to really take a risk and look for those finishes,” Pierce said. “It’s a great opportunity to prove my point, to finish Palhares and prove that I’m a main-card guy.”

And though Palhares currently is in his crosshairs, he’s no longer going after Brazilians in the media.

“The only thing I care about now is Palhares, and then after that, I’ll call out another guy, and hopefully, I’ll get that one,” Pierce said.

It won’t be much time before he’s making his voice heard, if things go according to plan. Pierce said he’s “not at all” concerned with any other aspect of the Brazilian’s game and said “if it does go the distance, I see him fading quickly … because I know he doesn’t have a whole lot of cardio.”

“I’ve always liked leglocks, anyway,” he added. “When I first started learning jiu-jitsu, I absolutely hated them because I was so preoccupied with what was going on with my upper body and making sure my arms were in the right place that I’d forget my legs, and then my jiu-jitsu coach would snatch up a leg and that would be it.”

These days, Pierce isn’t so scared to snatch a limb in practice and crank with all his might. But next Wednesday, he’ll be more worried about uncorking his fists.

For more on UFC Fight Night 29, check out the UFC Rumors section of the site.

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