The biggest fight in the career of Derek Campos will take place in two weeks when he meets former Bellator lightweight champion Michael Chandler on the main card of Bellator 138.
Campos (15-4) will be stepping into the Bellator cage for the seventh time when he faces Chandler and he is entering this fight following a 31 second knockout win against Estevan Payan at Bellator 126.
Prior to the fight against Payan, he lost to Patricky Pitbull in the season ten lightweight tournament semifinal. The lost to Pitbull made him reevaluate his career and it lead to the fighter originally from Lubbock, Texas making changes in his training.
“After that fight, I just needed to refocus myself mentally and physically as well,” Campos told The MMA Report. “I did not feel like I trained the right way and literally took care of myself. More than anything, it was mentally. Mentally I went into that fight and felt like I was unprepared. After that fight, I physically reexamined by training schedule and mentally started working on myself. Trying to get myself to focus more on being a fighter and that is what going into the fight with Estevan Payan — I was focused. I was relaxed and that is the reason I got the KO against him.”
He will now look to continue his climb up the Bellator lightweight rankings when he faces Chandler. Now when this fight was first announced, fans of Bellator wonder about this fight booking. For Campos, he was excited to hear his next fight would be against a fighter that he wanted to fight.
“I have personally been watching Chandler fight since he got into MMA and Bellator,” he said. “Seeing him fight, he is always the kind of fighter I want to fight. He has been a target of mine and when I found it that he wanted to fight me, I was excited. I was ready to go and that is pretty much it. He is the kind of fighter that you can’t say no too. You want to take it and that is what I did.”
It’s well known that Chandler is currently on a three fight losing streak. Those defeats came against former Bellator champion Eddie Alvarez and current Bellator champion Will Brooks. Campos has noticed that both Alvarez and Brooks were able to “beat the bull” in those fights and he knows that is what he needs to do to walk away with a victory on June 19.
“Eddie Alvarez and Will Brooks were able to figure out how to beat the bull. That is what I see,” Campos said. “That is what I am going to have to capitalize on. If there has been change in his game from his last lost to Will Brooks to now, we are going to see that on June 19. If not, I hate to say it, but I have his game figured out. I am going to be able to beat him the way I envision it. If not and he brings a whole new game to the table and has a different look, it’s going to be my job to figure it out in the first five minutes of the fight of what I have to do to implement a new strategy to beat him.”
The way he envisions defeating Chandler is by knockout. However, most people will likely be picking against Campos in this fight. He will likely be a big underdog on the betting odds and Campos has a quick message to everyone that thinks he can not win this fight.
“I would say, don’t blink. That is all I am going to say. Don’t blink.”