After coming up short in his first attempt in the Bellator MMA lightweight tournament, Will Brooks decided to tear everything down and started to rebuild before entering the season nine tournament. 
The changes he made ended up paying off as he won the season nine lightweight tournament with a dominating victory over Alexander Sarnavskiy this past Friday night at Bellator 109.
Bellator MMA Chairman and CEO Bjorn Rebney raved about Brooks at the post fight press conference on Friday and stated that Bellator has another top lightweight fighter.
“A young fighter that comes up with a huge amount of praise,” Rebney said. “Comes through the first tournament and has a little bit of a missed moment. Then comes back and totally focuses and goes to camp. Develops his game and established himself tonight against a guy in Tiger Sarnavskiy, who is consider to be the top prospect at 155 pounds. Put on a dominate performance and showed all aspects of the game. The kicks, the takedowns, the top control. Everything was there and he looked like a million dollars. We have another world class lightweight in Bellator and his name is Will Brooks.”
Along with securing a Bellator lightweight title shot, Brooks also won $100,000 for winning the tournament. During the post fight press conference, Brooks said that he plans to give his mom the big check he received in the cage.
“I am pretty sure my mom has been texting me over and over again,” Brooks said. “She is probably waiting to get that check. I tried to fold it up, stick it in my pocket but it didn’t work out. I will definitely give it to my mom because she likes that kind of stuff, so she can have it.”
Brooks will now wait to see when he will get his title shot, which will likely be at some point in 2014. Rebney said on Friday that he is looking into having the trilogy bout between lightweight champion Eddie Alvarez and Michael Chandler in the spring. Also, season seven tournament winner Dave Jansen is currently on the sideline recovering from a knee injury.
Rebney felt that due to the nature of the injury to Jansen that Brooks will likely get the first title shot after the trilogy bout between Alvarez and Chandler. No matter who comes out of that fight, Brooks believes that they are holding his belt.
“I am really happy to be here and I can’t wait till I get the opportunity to beat up Michael Chandler, Eddie Alvarez or who else has the belt. I have said it over and over again, they are just holding my belt and tonight I put on a demonstration of what is going to happen when I get that opportunity to get that belt.”
Brooks admitted on Friday night that he did not know that Jansen was injured and he may get a title shot before him. However, Brooks is open to fighting Jansen if that is what Bellator would like to do.
“I’ll fight Jansen. I will fight Jansen once he comes back and he is healthy. I will fight him. I said it at the start of the tournament, I don’t care how I get to the belt, I am getting to the belt. If Jansen is still in the mix. I did not know he was hurt. I did not know the whole story. I don’t care, we will fight Jansen and we will then go fight Eddie or Michael or whoever.”