The next Bellator light heavyweight tournament will begin at Bellator 96 on June 19th at the WinStar World Casino in Thackerville, Oklahoma and one of the fighters in the tournament is Jacob Noe.
This will be the second time that Noe has been placed into a Bellator tournament as he was a semifinalist in the season eight tournament.
With this being his second tournament, Noe (11-2, 1NC) did learn lessons from the first tournament and the biggest lesson was about the timing of the tournament.
“I guess it would be the timing,” Noe told TheMMAReport.com. “Sometimes when I get done with a win, I like to take a break but in the tournament, I realize that you can not do that. After my first fight with Seth Petruzelli, I got a suspected orbital fracture and I had to go to the doctor so that kind of threw me off about two weeks. Of course, the whole team thought I was out. That was news we got from the first doctor. It was hard to rally the guys back to say I’m in.”
“I think that we will be full strength and I am getting ready to join alliances with Team Syndicate and I am really excited about that. I think those guys are really knowledgeable and John Woods is going to give me a hand. I know what to expect with the timing as far as I need to stay accurate till the whole tournament is over and don’t enjoy your money right off the get go. I learned a lot and I think I will have a better shot in the second go around.”
Another lesson that Noe learned from the first tournament is to make sure he is prepared for every fight. Because of the suspected orbital fracture against Petruzelli, he did not have much time to prepare for Zayats and admitted that he did not have a game plan for the fight.
“We did not even have a game plan and that is the first thing you are supposed to do. It’s because of the suspected orbital fracture so we just threw everything together after we found out. I think there was maybe six weeks in between and I think we got started a month out. For two weeks, I was going doctor to doctor to figure out what was going on. It was kind of a mess but as I said, we will be more prepared this time and I should do even better.”
In the opening round of the Bellator Summer Series light heavyweight tournament, Noe will face Renato “Babalu” Sobral. Noe realizes that Babalu will be looking to take the fight to the ground after what Noe did off his back against Zayats.
Noe will be heading out to Team Syndicate today for the rest of his fight camp. It’s a tough move for him to do this because he will have to be away from his children for several weeks.
He understands that this is something he needs to do and his focus in going to Team Syndicate is to work on the game plan and different scenarios that could unfold in his fight against Babalu
“I am here in Memphis and working with my team Memphis Judo and Jiu-Jitsu. They are great guys and they are helping in pushing me and get me in shape. That is the main focus here and when I get to Team Syndicate, I have asked them to help me out with the game plan and work the drills and scenarios. I know those guys are knowledgeable and I have been out there before. I am excited to see what they have for me.”
If Noe is able to defeat Babalu at Bellator 96 next month, he will meet the winner of the other tournament fight in the final which is Muhammed “King Mo” Lawal meeting Seth Petruzelli. Noe already holds a win over Petruzelli and he has an ideal of who he think will win that fight.
“I have my opinion of who I think is going to win that fight. I don’t know if I will be true but I got a feeling that Seth Petruzelli might be ok. I think he might do it. I think he is a really good fighter. I kind of look forward to meeting him again just because of him saying it was the knee in my previous fight was the reason. I look at it like this, what time have you had to heel and I hope it’s not the case again. If he says he was not one hundred percent, it kind of offended me just because I felt I was better at that moment and give me some glory.”
“I will be ready to fight either one of them. Of course, I am going to work my ground and work my stand up. I will be ready for whatever but I am going to be really curious to see who wins that matchup. That’s one of the ones that I am not one hundred percent sure of what I think will happen. I don’t doubt King Mo at all. Of course, I’m sure they way he lost last time, I’m sure he wants to redeem himself. I think it will be an interesting fight and I’ll make sure I’m ready for whoever.”