UFC 142 Preview – Erick Silva vs Carlo Prater

Photo Credit - UFC

Carlo Prater is on a four fight win streak that started on the Strikeforce event that was headlined by the great Beerbohm-Healy scramblefest in February of 2011. But I haven’t seen the other fights in this current streak, so I don’t know how good he’s actually looked. Prater is generally a fun fighter to watch, but he has a lot of holes in his game. Almost all his fights in the last few years against well known fighters are losing efforts like against Drew Fickett, Antonio McKee, Brock Larson, and Carlos Condit.

Erick Silva looked like a future star in his lone UFC fight against Luis Ramos at UFC: Rio back in August of 2011. I have yet to watch any of his other fights, but they are on my “to do list” for 2012. Brazilian journalist Marcelo Alonso was recently discussing how Silva early on didn’t have the opportunity to fully focus on MMA on a full time basis. Alonso went on to comment that he now has that opportunity and has talked about how much Silva has improved since that turning point. Prater is a fun fighter who I like very much, but I feel it’s going to be a rough night for him.