2014 is shaping up to be a huge year for Brandon Halsey. Following the a 2013 campaign that saw him flash signs of brilliance as a light heavyweight with Bellator victories over Rockey Ramirez, Hector Ramirez and Joe Yager, Halsey now finds himself in the middleweight final of Bellator’s Season 10 tournament.
Halsey stepped up a late-replacement in the middleweight bracket and made the most of his opportunity – besting Joe Pacheco at Bellator 116 – to advance to the finals against Bellator veteran Brett Cooper.
The fight takes place tonight at Bellator 122 at the Pechanga Resort and Casino in Temecula, California.
Halsey, an NCAA Division 1 All-American wrestler, has been reliant on his wrestling base to create success thus far in his professional outings, although he has continued in his efforts to improve his stand-up arsenal.
“I’ve really only been seriously training in striking since early this year, and I can already tell that I’ve jumped light years with my striking,” said Halsey. “The more I fight, the more I get in the cage and the more experience I get, as I progress, there’s absolutely no limit to how far I can go in this sport.”
Like most fighters, Halsey is confident in his game and what he can bring to the table against Cooper, but he also understands that he is still a couple of years away from his prime.
“In two years, I see myself as being one of the best in the game. I know it takes time to build all the right skills, but I feel like that I already have that strong foundation where I can build up all my skills very quickly.”
Halsey will show how much of that foundation he has built upon thus far tonight when takes on Brett Cooper, an opponent that he respects.
“Brett Cooper is a really scrappy guy. He’s got a lot of fights under his belt, and he’s been in the game for a while. I think, overall, that he’s good everywhere,” said Halsey. “My key is that I’m going to be more athletic, stronger and more explosive than him, and I’m going to keep moving forward. As long as I keep moving forward, I don’t see Brett Cooper being able to stop me.”
While a victory over Cooper is surely one of Halsey’s goals, it’s certainly not his sole motivation in the sport.
“My motivation and end-goal are the same, and they’re both quite simple: I don’t want to just be a tournament champ or the Bellator world champion, I want to be the number one pound-for-pound fighter in MMA,” he said. “When people look back at MMA and think about who the best fighters to ever live were, I want them to think about Brandon Halsey.”