Varner Focused On Roller For WEC 53 On Thursday

Added on Dec 14, 2010 by John Petit in

UFC & MMA

Former Lightweight WEC Champion Jamie Varner is getting ready to fight Shane Roller at WEC 53 this Thursday at the last WEC event in history. The fight will take place in front of Varner’s home town, and in a state where he helped regulation come to fruition. The fact of the matter is, that Varner is one fight away from entering the Octagon again, and he is focused like a laser beam on getting past Shane Roller.

Varner seems to understand that just entering the UFC doesn’t mean everyone loves you. He told MMAjunkie “We know we’re not going to get love. You have to fight and earn your love, and that’s what I like about the UFC as opposed to the WEC. A lot of people didn’t give me the respect I that I felt I deserved, even when I was champ and was beating the guys I was beating. It’s like, ‘Well, you’re just a big fish in a small pond. Well, now I’m in the UFC. It’s time to swim with the sharks. I’m really excited.”

Before he can get back to the Octagon, he was 1-1 in a stint with the UFC before he signed with the WEC, Varner has to put away Shane Roller, and he isn’t looking past him. The one thing he knows for sure, is that he wants to keep this fight standing. Varner sees the holes in Shane’s stand up, he said “There’s definitely some serious holes in his striking game. I feel that I’m a much more seasoned, technical striker than he is, especially as far as boxing goes. He throws a lot of looping wide punches, which worked for Chuck Liddell. But generally, the straight ones get there a hell of a lot faster than the looping ones do. I’ve got power in both my hands, so I’m pretty confident that if he tries to exchange with me, I’ll get the better of him and definitely hurt him. Shane’s a little bit out of his realm if he tries to stand and strike with me. So they’re going to try and take me down, and I know that coming into this fight.”

Obviously, Jamie doesn’t want to spend much time on the ground with Roller. Roller has an ace up his sleeve, as he studies BJJ under renowned BJJ instructor Mark Laimon. “Mark Laimon can do wonders on the ground, as far as turning great wrestlers into great jiu-jitsu guys. That’s probably where I’m most nervous, but I’ve been doing jiu jitsu a long time, and I train with a lot of great guys. But that’s where I see Shane posing the biggest threat.”

WEC 53 will take place on Thursday, and it will be the last event they do as a promotion. Zuffa, the parent company of the UFC, has merged the two organizations together as of January 1, 2011.