One of the Bellator’s original hallmarks was the promotion’s ability to develop lightweight prospects and pump them out into bonafide contenders. Names like Michael Chandler, Will Brooks and Marcin Held have each crafted their skill-set in the company’s tournaments and eventually gone on to fight in headlining bouts.
While the promotion’s identity has shifted towards putting on tentpole events with already established names such as Kimbo Slice, Tito Ortiz and Bobby Lashley, there are still several prospects on the potential track of becoming title challengers. One of those prospects is Brent Primus.
Primus started off his Bellator career in 2013 with a simple rear-naked choke submission win over Scott Thometz, and he would go on to showcase his jiu-jitsu credentials and finishing ability with first round wins to close out the year and kick off 2014.
While Primus has looked nearly flawless in his five-fight career, he may not be the easiest name to recall for Bellator fans given that he hasn’t competed in nearly 18 months. Primus plans to change that this Friday at Bellator 141 when he takes on Derek Anderson, but the road to his return to the cage has been a vexing one.
“It’s been kind’ve frustrating,” Primus told the MMA Report. “I did have a little injury that took me out for about two months, but I’ve been ready to go ever since then. I kept on hearing from my manager, ‘you’re fighting this month, you’re this month, you’re fighting next month’. So I’ve been training my butt off, ready to go, and I’m so happy that I’m finally getting back in there.”
During the time off, the 30-year-old Oregon native has moved from the Sports Lab to Rose City FC and has spent some time training with an upcoming UFC title challenger.
“Rose FC is definitely where I do most of my MMA [training], but I actually live in Eugene. It’s about two hours away from Portland, and I drive up there four times a week, sometimes five,” Primus said. “But I have a really, really good technical jiu-jitsu gym that I train with in Eugene. There’s like ten black belts and just really, really high level grappling guys that I train with.”
“I’ve also been to the BMF Ranch with Cowboy Donald Cerrone and a bunch of those guys a couple times this year. That really helped my everything. Their mentality, their go-go-go, their training. It was awesome to train with those guys.”
Cerrone’s BMF Ranch features some of the sports’ premier lighter weight fighters. Primus was able to get a bird’s eye view on where his potential could lead him, and it was thanks to a training partner that he had that opportunity.
“I train with Pat Healy, and Pat Healy called me one day and was like, ‘man, I’m going up to BMF Ranch. A bunch of those fights got a fight coming up. I told them about you, and they would love to have you up there’. I was like, ‘oh my god, dream come true’. So I went out there for a little over two weeks, trained with them. I loved it. Came back, Cowboy called me back, ‘hey man, I got a fight coming up, can you come back and help me train’. I went back there and went and trained with them, I learned so much just watching those guys, training with them, seeing his mentality. It was probably one of the highlights of my career. It was awesome.”
With time spent training and continuing to improve on his overall game, Primus is excited to return to his climb up the lightweight ranks and show Bellator the ground he has made.
“I haven’t gotten to show anything yet,” Primus said. “I haven’t gotten to show my stand-up. As an amateur, I was knocking everybody out in the cage. I really feel like no one has seen what I can do yet, and I’m so excited to prove all that. I’m so well-rounded. I have so much more work to do. I’m excited, and I’m training hard every single day.”
Primus will be able to show the product of all of his work this Friday, and against Derek Anderson, he’s looking to continue his Bellator streak of putting his opponents’ away in the initial frame.
“[Derek Anderson]’s a tough opponent, and he’s dangerous,” Primus said. “He’s got some good wins, and his standup is good. He has submissions too, but I really feel 100% in my game right now. I’ve been training so hard, and I know if I go in there and train to my game-plan and train to my potential, he’s not going to last [past] the first round.”