· Lance Palmer ~ A Force To Be Reckoned With

Top level collegiate wrestlers are no strangers to the world of mixed martial arts, with world champions like Brock Lesnar, “King Mo” Lawal, and Frankie Edgar having graced wrestling mats before ever dreaming of competing in MMA. These days, it seems as though collegiate wrestling has become sort of a minor league for the sport, with noted wrestlers like Cole Konrad, Mark Ellis, and Ben Askren starting to make a name for themselves in the cage after their lives on the mat are over.

The latest addition to this crop of amateur-wrestlers-turned-mixed-martial-artists is Lance Palmer, a four-time All-American during his time at Ohio State and the 2010 Big Ten champion at 149 pounds. Although Palmer only recently announced his intentions to enter MMA, he has been planning the move for some time now.

“I knew that I wanted to do MMA since I was a sophomore in college,” Palmer said in a recent interview with MMASpot.net. “There was no one time when I was like ‘this is what I want to do.’ Basically, I’ve always wanted to get into it. I took a boxing class after my freshman year in college and got more and more serious about it.”

Coming from a wrestling background, his decision on a what team to train with was an easy one. Team Alpha Male in Sacramento, California was a perfect fit. “I had a lot of offers to go with other camps, a lot of financial offers and things like that, but for the point I’m at now, all of those guys are kind of around my size, and most camps are all bigger guys,” Palmer said.

“There’s no other camp in the country that has just light-weight guys. It’s a camp that I can fit into well, and they all come from a wrestling background of some sort, so it’s an easy transition when everybody else that you’re training with has already transitioned to MMA.”

In somewhat of a surprising move, Palmer will actually move up from the 149-pound-mark, where he competed in college, to fight at the lightweight limit of 155 pounds in MMA. To make his transition a more seamless one, Palmer has also signed with Sacramento-based management group MMA Inc. This group also represents fellow Alpha Male fighters Urijah Faber, Joseph Benavidez, and Chad Mendes.

“To go with MMA Inc. as my managers for now was also an easy decision because they’re based out of Sacramento [and] because they have a good relationship with guys like Urijah.”

Before he moves to Sacramento, Palmer will be living a dream come true back in Columbus.

“I actually worked out with [former Ohio State national champion wrestler and former UFC heavyweight champion] Mark Coleman yesterday. Until I move out to Sacramento at the end of the month, I’m basically going to be working out with him and a couple of other guys. I’ve looked up to [another former Ohio State national champion and former UFC heavyweight champion Kevin] Randleman and Coleman since they were both in the PRIDE Fighting Championships in the 90s.”

A dominant high school wrestler who compiled a record of 150-6 at Ohio wrestling power Lakewood St. Edward near Cleveland, Palmer moved on to Ohio State after his high school days. From there, he became the first freshman All-American for the Buckeyes since J.D. Bergman. After finishing fourth in the NCAA tournament, Palmer went on to earn All-America honors three more times while at Ohio State – and became only the second OSU wrestler to do so, joining the legendary Tommy Rowlands in that category. An upset win over rival Brent Metcalf of Iowa in the 2010 Big Ten Championships remains his crowing achievement to date, he said.

Palmer will have the rare luxury as a young fighter to train full-time while at Alpha Male, and he said that he would not have it any other way.

“To be the best at something, Tommy Rowlands said it best, ‘if you want to be the best at something, you have to be full time at it, and sometimes you have to work overtime.’ It’s going to be a struggle at first, but if you’re training full time and doing the right things, everything will end up in the long run where I want it. I’m not looking for short term; I’m looking for long term situations.”

Palmer said that he hopes to have his first pro fight in September, although he will let his managers and the elder statesmen at Alpha Male decide whether he will be ready for a fight by then.

“I think with the training for MMA, basically I just use my brain as a sponge, because learning something new is fun and it gives me motivation,” Palmer said. “I’m motivated to learn, because I want to be the best at it. And basically because I’m starting from the ground up, I go in there and it’s like a classroom. I’m going to be around great guys who know how to win—Mark Coleman and Urijah Faber.”

Faber, the former WEC featherweight champion, said that he jumped at the chance to add a teammate like Palmer: “Palmer will be a great fit for Team Alpha Male. He has the type of work ethic we look for in a team member and is one of the toughest wrestlers in the country. He has a champion's mentality and that is what we look for in our teammates,” Faber said early this week.

With a chance at fellow St. Edward graduate and current UFC lightweight contender Gray Maynard potentially waiting for him down the line, Palmer said that he is eager to start his career and subsequent climb to the top of the sport.

“Eventually I want to win the belt in the UFC. I’m definitely not going to set my goal at [just] getting into the UFC. I see myself being there soon enough and I’m basically just training as quick as I can and I want to be the world champ in the UFC; that’s the bottom line.

“For me, it’s kind of like the Lance Palmer era has started. People can hate it or love it, but I’m going to be a force to be reckoned with wherever I fight. Hopefully everybody is ready to see it.”


In addition to MMA Spot, David McKinney is the MMA columnist for UWeekly Magazine and a contributor to MMA Madness.

Photos: BuckeyeWrestling.com