MMA Oddsbreaker’s Frank Trigg speaks with Bellator lightweight Will Brooks as he gets prepared for his upcoming (Sept. 27, 2013) Bellator 101 lightweight tournament bout against veteran John Alessio at the Rose Garden in Portland, Oregon.
“Ill” Will seems to have learned a lesson from earlier this year when he was upset by Saad Awad in the season eight lightweight tournament semifinals:
“I just wasn’t there to fight. I was very content on where I was in my career at that point. I had went through so many struggles to get up to that point that I was in a mindset where I was enjoying the moment more than actually thinking about winning the fight. I was just caught up in being happy, finally finding a spot in my career where I wasn’t worried about when the next fight was coming, not worried about money or things like that or frustrated because no one was giving me an opportunity. I was very comfortable with where I was at at the time and there were so many people who had me as an automatic winner of that tournament and I kind of bought into that. I drank the Kool-Aid, some might say, and I was thinking that I felt really sharp and I wasn’t going to kill myself in the next training camp, overtrain myself. I halfway did the training camp and it was clear. I looked sluggish, I felt sluggish, I wasn’t there and I couldn’t flip that switch and go to the other side where you want to go out there and hunt, eat something. I was too relaxed.”
Brooks is a hefty favorite against Alessio on Friday night. Hopefully his new mindset will pay off.