The latest Bellator MMA lightweight tournament begin last Friday night in Portland, Oregon and Will Brooks advanced to the semifinals with a decision victory over John Alessio.
He will now face Saad Awad in a rematch of their season eight tournament bout which Awad won in the first round by knockout.
There first fight took place at the Santa Ana Star Center in Rio Rancho, New Mexico and their rematch will take place in the same venue.
During his appearance on Tuesday’s edition of “The MMA Report Live,” Brooks explained that he is happy to get a rematch with Awad and a chance at redemption.
“I’m very happy about getting this rematch,” Brooks said. “I’m very excited about going in there. I get to get a little bit of redemption and I think a lot of guys when they lose and they get the opportunity to rematch the guy, it’s natural for anyone to want to get a rematch in any sport or any competition.”
“I am very excited to get the opportunity. I am just going to settle down and focus on competing and neutralizing my opponent and being as dominating as I possibly can and moving on in the tournament. For now, I’m locked into the movement of fighting a rematch against Saad and making sure I compete at a high level.”
His fight with Awad will take place in three weeks at Bellator 105 on October 25th and he begin his training camp for this fight yesterday. He plans to train as hard as he possibly can for the fight and listen to the instructions his coaches give him.
“The only thing I can really do is make sure I train as hard as I possibly can train and make sure I am listening to my coaches and really making sure this training camp is up to par and making sure I stay focused on competing. Very focused on being as athletic and imposing as I can be. I am going to do whatever my coaches tell me I need to do during this training camp to prepare and stick to that because it clearly worked for my previous fight. I want to continue to buy into this program they have me on at American Top Team and do whatever I’m told by my coaches here.”
While the venue and the opponent are familiar to Brooks, that does not matter to win and stated that the result this time will be different than his first meeting with Awad at Bellator 91.
“Same venue, same opponent, it really doesn’t matter. I can definitely say that there is going to be a different result this time. I can definitely put that out there.”