David Rickels entered Bellator in 2011 and will get his first opportunity at becoming a Bellator champion when he challenges Michael Chandler for the lightweight title on July 31st in the main event of Bellator 97.
He secured this title fight after winning the season eight lightweight tournament over Saad Awad at Bellator 94 in March.
Originally, he was not slated to be the next title contender for the lightweight title as season seven tournament winner Dave Jansen was ahead of him.
Bellator had scheduled Jansen to face Chandler for the title at Bellator 96 in June but a knee injury forced Jansen to pull out of the fight.
Once Bellator was aware of the injury, Rickels got the call about the title shot and the promotion asked him when he would be ready for the fight. He told TheMMAReport.com that prior to receiving the call from Bellator, he had not really been training and was weighing around 205 pounds.
“I was fat and happy,” Rickels said. “I was about 205 pounds when they called me and I jumped on the scale and I am like ‘I have not trained at all.’ I teach kick boxing and we had a lot of guys that had fights. Every weekend it seemed like I was out coaching and not training at all. I was not doing much training and I knew with eight weeks I could get in shape. I feel really good about the training I’ve had so far. I feel really good going into this fight. Hopefully the eight weeks I was given will translate into a super exciting Caveman versus Chandler battle.”
Chandler is known for his wrestling background but has shown improvements in his striking over his past couple of fights including his TKO win over Akihiro Gono at Bellator 67 last year. Rickels knows that he has to be ready for the wrestling aspect of Chandler’s game but hopes he will want to stand and trade with him.
“I have looked at the scenario a few ways. I think he likes to trade and I hope that is what he will want to do. Wrestlers are good at threaten their wrestling to set up their striking. I don’t think he is the most technical Muay Thai specialist in the world or the best boxer but he is definitely slick. He transitions well from dropping his levels from punches. I just hope that he wants to bang. That would be the funniest thing for me and I think the fans would enjoy that the most. There is probably definitely going to be some wrestling going on I think.”
“The Caveman” would like to defeat Chandler by knockout but knows it will not be something easy to do in two weeks at the Santa Ana Star Center in Rio Rancho, New Mexico.
“I really want to knock him out. I really would like to trade on the feet. Eddie [Alvarez] hurt him a little bit in that fight. It’s definitely not something that is going to be easy to do but hopefully we will get to trade and have some really exciting trades where someone is going to get hurt.”