Will Brooks, the mixed martial arts Bellator lightweight champion, recently revealed that he is very much comfortable on where he is in the sport right now and he’s not seeing any changes happening in the near future.
Brooks, who has a current record of 16-1 MMA and 8-1 BMMA, has been at the top of Bellator’s 155-pound class since May of last year. He will now face his third attempt to hold on to the title a little bit more during the Bellator 145 event this coming Friday. Brooks will be going up against an excellent grappler, Marcin Held, who has a current record of 21-3 MMA and 10-2 BMMA.
Marcin Held was able to emerge victorious and won 11 out of his 12 fights; he even managed to finish seven of his contenders in that stretch. Held is very impressive in terms of his submission tactics. In fact, this submission game of his is one of the slickest ones in the MMA sport; he is even capable of changing the dynamics of the game in a snap of a finger.
With these amazing facts, however, Brooks said that he is not really that concerned about the upcoming bout. Not only that, he admitted that he is not concerned about the other fighters in his weight class. This is the reason why he is very confident with his position in the sport right now, which is at the top of the division.
“I’m getting a lot more comfortable with who I am as a person and in the cage and I don’t feel too much of a threat by anybody. I see this fight as another opportunity to make money and continue my career and to go on and win and compete. I don’t feel like there’s a lot of expectation for me to go out and do this and do that. I just go out there and do what I do best, and that’s compete and be the best fighter I can possibly be at all times,” Brooks said in a recent interview with MMAjunkie.
Even though Held deserves the chance to fight for the title by winning six straight fights in the MMA promotion, Brooks said that this is still not enough to impress him. Brooks further revealed that he has some thoughts about Held’s game plan inside the octagon, which led him to believe that Held will not be able to keep up with his expertise come fight night.
“I appreciate a guy that puts his heart and dedication into something, but at the same time this is MMA and I feel like you have to go out there and compete. I feel like from certain things I’ve seen from him, diving across the cage for a guy’s legs and all these different things – for me, that’s desperation and it seems a little cowardly to me. If you’re going to try to take me down, punch me in the face, kick me and beat me up, shoot a double-leg, then do something, All this diving around the cage is weak. It’s a coward’s way out. I put too much time in the gym to be a well-rounded fighter for someone to come in there and think they’re just going to dive across the cage and just grab my leg. It’s very disrespectful. He’s very one-dimensional and I don’t think he’s ready to compete against somebody like me,” Brooks said.
Bellator 145 will be held at Scottrade Center in St. Louis. Fans can watch the main card on Spike TV after the prelims on MMAjunkie.
