Bellator lightweight champion Will Brooks will make his second title defense tonight at Bellator 136 in Irvine, California as he will be challenged by season seven tournament winner Dave Jansen.
Some people may consider this the first title defense for Brooks (15-1) as he became the interim champion nearly one year ago with a decision victory over Chandler and then became the unified champion with a TKO victory over Chandler at Bellator 131.
In the lead up to his title defense against Jansen, many things have been said between the two fighters on social media. One of the things Brooks has tweeted is that he plans to retire Jansen. Some fan could take that quote by saying Brooks is not taking this serious. Brooks has a response to those fans and gave insight into his recent comments.
“I would tell those fans that I take everything serious,” Brooks told The MMA Report. “Every time I step into the cage, I have a certain amount of fear that the man across cage can take everything from me right now. I say everything. Most people only think this is a lost for tonight. I might lose half my paycheck but I can come back and compete again. For me, I see him taking everything from me. I see him taking my seven year plan away from me. I see him taking away future plans I have set for myself. So I am not going to go out here and be overly respect of him because he has not been respect of me. He signed his name on a contract and he has decided that he is going to be able to take something from me.”
“When you signed your name on this contract and have this idea you can beat me, this is where I am at right now. You have signed on and made it clear that you want to attack what I built. This is what I do. I turn around and I attack you. I lash out because this is how I am built. This is what I have been taught to do. I carry myself in this matter. Am I trying to be disrespectful to Dave Jansen? No, I am not trying to be disrespectful to Dave Jansen but when it comes to this sport when it comes to competing, this is a business. This is the hurt business and when you get into this business you have to decide that you have to be able to flip that switch and go into kill mode. That is what I do.”
Jansen came back to Bellator last year after being away for over a year due to an injury and scored a decision victory against two-time Bellator tournament winner Rick Hawn. While many people raved about the performance by Jansen, Brooks did not see a fighter that has evolved.
“Looking back at his fights before Rick Hawn and then his fight with Rick Hawn, I did not personally see anything that was addressed and changed. Did he change his style of striking? Yeah, he threw a lot more kicks in that fight but I also think he threw a lot more kicks in that fight because of who Rick Hawn is. The fact that Rick Hawn just came off a fight where Douglas Lima almost kicked his legs off his body. He understood that was a good strategy that Douglas Lima took advantage of.”
“Did I see a lot of things that showed he evolved from any of his previous fights? No, I did not really. I saw a guy that was really prepared to go back to who he used to be when threatened during that fight with Rick Hawn. Rick Hawn was not able to threaten him enough to go back to who he typically is.I saw that Rick Hawn was able to do that for a split second and that showed me that he has not evolved enough. He has not fully evolved. That is a weakness for him and when because when I evolve, I fully evolve. I change completely and there is no chance you can get me to go back to Will Brooks of two years ago. It does not happen and it does not work like that.”