Healy Plans to Stay in Blanco’s Face
After winning a decision over Eric Wisely
last month at Strikeforce Challengers 18, Pat Healy had a
feeling he should stay in fight shape.
Josh Thomson was scheduled to fight Maximo Blanco on Sept. 10, but Healy was already envisioning himself taking someone’s spot.
“I just had this feeling looking at this fight card and seeing this
fight that there could be a good possibility that one of these guys
pulls out,” Healy (Pictured, File Photo) said during a “Savage Dog Show”
interview on the Sherdog Radio Network. “Josh has been plagued
with injuries his whole career, and Maximo … with everything that’s
gone on in Japan over the last year, I thought, ‘Man, I really need
to be ready for this fight.’”
Sure enough, Thomson dropped out with a foot injury, and Healy was signed as his replacement.
Healy’s bout on Saturday is scheduled to open Showtime’s main card telecast of the Strikeforce heavyweight grand prix semifinals. The fight will be the promotional debut for Blanco, a native of Venezuela who trains in Japan and has made a name for himself as a violent finisher.
“What I can’t let him do is fight his pace,” Healy said. “I think he flurries hard and then he lays back and then he flurries hard again and lays back. If I let him fight that pace, it’s going to be a long night for me. I have to stay in his face and force him to fight all the time … . If he fights at his flurry pace the whole time, I don’t care how good of shape you’re in, you just can’t keep that up for more than like three minutes. It’s just impossible. I’ve got to really force him to fight, not give him any breaks and kind of weather his early storm.”
Healy acknowledged that his strategy might sound odd, but he believes the best approach against an aggressive opponent like Blanco is to be aggressive himself.
“He gets kind of crazy and wild, and I think there’s a lot of openings at that time,” Healy said. “If I stay tight, keep a good defense and keep in his face, I think he’ll eventually make a mistake that ends the fight.”
A winner in five of his last six, Healy thinks his matchup against Blanco could be a showcase performance. He wants to impress his bosses at Zuffa, particularly with Strikeforce’s future in question.
“It does definitely seem kind of like they’re dismantling things [at Strikeforce], but I think it adds a little bit more pressure to each fight because we don’t know what’s going to happen over the next couple of months,” Healy said. “I think you’ve really got to make sure every win counts, every performance counts. I think even if you go out there and have a bad performance and get a real boring win, it’s just as bad as a loss. … Everybody wants to be in the UFC. If you’re not shooting for the UFC, I don’t know what you’re doing in this sport.”
Listen to the full interview (beginning at 56:25).
Josh Thomson was scheduled to fight Maximo Blanco on Sept. 10, but Healy was already envisioning himself taking someone’s spot.
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Sure enough, Thomson dropped out with a foot injury, and Healy was signed as his replacement.
“I might have found out about it two weeks ago, but I was preparing
for it before that,” he said. “… I’m always around the gym anyway.
I don’t have too much else going on. I always try to stay in the
gym. These are great opportunities for a guy like me to get on the
main card of a big show and get a lot of eyes on me and really show
people what I can do.”
Healy’s bout on Saturday is scheduled to open Showtime’s main card telecast of the Strikeforce heavyweight grand prix semifinals. The fight will be the promotional debut for Blanco, a native of Venezuela who trains in Japan and has made a name for himself as a violent finisher.
“What I can’t let him do is fight his pace,” Healy said. “I think he flurries hard and then he lays back and then he flurries hard again and lays back. If I let him fight that pace, it’s going to be a long night for me. I have to stay in his face and force him to fight all the time … . If he fights at his flurry pace the whole time, I don’t care how good of shape you’re in, you just can’t keep that up for more than like three minutes. It’s just impossible. I’ve got to really force him to fight, not give him any breaks and kind of weather his early storm.”
Healy acknowledged that his strategy might sound odd, but he believes the best approach against an aggressive opponent like Blanco is to be aggressive himself.
“He gets kind of crazy and wild, and I think there’s a lot of openings at that time,” Healy said. “If I stay tight, keep a good defense and keep in his face, I think he’ll eventually make a mistake that ends the fight.”
A winner in five of his last six, Healy thinks his matchup against Blanco could be a showcase performance. He wants to impress his bosses at Zuffa, particularly with Strikeforce’s future in question.
“It does definitely seem kind of like they’re dismantling things [at Strikeforce], but I think it adds a little bit more pressure to each fight because we don’t know what’s going to happen over the next couple of months,” Healy said. “I think you’ve really got to make sure every win counts, every performance counts. I think even if you go out there and have a bad performance and get a real boring win, it’s just as bad as a loss. … Everybody wants to be in the UFC. If you’re not shooting for the UFC, I don’t know what you’re doing in this sport.”
Listen to the full interview (beginning at 56:25).
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