Season Seven lightweight tournament winner Dave Jansen was scheduled to challenge Michael Chandler for the Bellator lightweight title at Bellator 96 last June, but he had to pull out of the fight with an injury.
Jansen ended up having surgery to repair the damage in his knee and has been recovering from the injury over the past couple of months.
It has nearly been one year since Jansen won the season seven tournament against Marcin Held and Bellator MMA Chairman and CEO Bjorn Rebney told TheMMAReport.com recently that he believes that Jansen will probably return in the fall.
“Dave will probably be prepared to come back in the fall, early part of the fall,” Rebney said. “Real substantial knee injury. Dave has been working like a dog to try to rehab it and try to get it back. He is almost one hundred percent back now but he is going to need substantial more time to get in world class fighting shape to be able to challenge for a title. We are probably looking late summer, early fall for Dave.”
Jansen (19-2) is currently on a six fight winning streak and all of those wins have come in Bellator. Not only is Jansen waiting for a title shot in the Bellator lightweight division, season nine winner Will Brooks is as well. Based of timing and when Jansen can come back, Brooks may end up getting the winner of the upcoming title fight between Eddie Alvarez and Chandler before Jansen gets his shot at the title.