MMA Weekend Preview: Alvarez vs. Curran, Wilcox vs. Damm, Burkman, Horodecki, Kaufman, Teixeira & More

(Eddie Alvarez took out Roger Huerta at Bellator 33.)

There are no major shows this weekend but the best lightweight outside of Zuffa will be back in action. But first, we’ve got the first Strikeforce show produced under Zuffa ownership.

Strikeforce Challengers 15 goes down Friday night in Stockton. The card is headlined by Justin Wilcox (#27 Lightweight) vs. Rodrigo Damm. A win here should graduate Wilcox to Strikeforce’s better promoted shows. The lightweight headliner is supported by Scott Lighty (#89 Light Heavyweight) vs. Lorenz Larkin,
Caros Fodor vs. David Douglas (#114 Lightweight), and James Terry (#41 Welterweight) vs. Josh Thornburg. Strikeforce Challengers 15 airs on Showtime at 11 p.m. EST, Fri., April 1.

On Sat., Bellator hosts a Lightweight Championship fight at Bellator 39. Champ Eddie Alvarez (#11 Lightweight) takes on challenger Pat Curran (#30), and the season four tournaments roll on with Lyman Good (#37 Welterweight) vs. Rick Hawn (#76), Toby Imada (#52 Lightweight) vs. Patricky Freire and Ben Saunders (#54 Welterweight) faces off with Matt Lee (#140) in a feature bout. The untelevised undercard boasts WEC vet Dave Jansen, UFC vets Matt Veach and Dan Cramer. Bellator 39 airs on MTV2 at 9 p.m. on Sat., April 2.

A host of other notables will compete this weekend on cards scattered around the globe. On Fri., Glover Teixeira (#35 Light Heavyweight) takes on Guto Inocente at Shooto Brazil 22. On Sat., M-1 Global vet Kenny Garner (#78 Heavyweight) takes on Danny Lockhart at AOF 12: Static and in Vancouver, British Columbia, Sarah Kaufman faces Megumi Yabushita in front of her hometown crowd at AFC 5: Judgement Day. A few provinces away, KO Entertainment will produce the first sanctioned MMA card in Ontario. The Reckoning features Jordan Mein vs. Josh Burkman (#113 Welterweight), Chris Horodecki (#86 Lightweight) vs. David Castillo, Dean Amasinger vs. Matt MacGrath (#172 Welterweight), and Antonio Carvalho (#51 Featherweight) vs. Tony Hervey.

Check back on Monday for full results and analysis of the impact this weekend’s fights had on the rankings.