Fugitive Principles

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Some mixed martial artists feel the need to talk about their opponents in the run-up to a fight, whether it is to bolster their own confidence, to play mind games or for some other reason.

Dave Jansen, who will challenge Will Brooks for the Bellator MMA lightweight championship at Bellator 136 on Friday at the Bren Events Center in Irvine, Calif., is not one of those fighters. The same cannot be said for Brooks, who has gotten Jansen’s attention with a number of verbal taunts.

“He has got some impressive wins, for sure,” Jansen, 35, told Sherdog.com. “I think he’s really immature, though, and has a lot of growing up to do. He’s 27, but his brain’s not fully developed. That doesn’t happen in men until their 30s, so I have that going for me. Look at what he puts on Twitter. It’s comedy. It’s so funny how overconfident he is. He tried to troll me on Twitter, but it was nothing that merited a response. He called me ‘old man’ and was saying my time has come and gone. He’s insecure. You have to see that. It’s plain as day. His ego is his own worst enemy. It’s definitely pride before the fall with this kid.”

Jansen claims the champion’s trash talk has not stirred any feelings of hatred or given him extra incentive. Instead, the 35-year-old is looking inside himself for motivation.

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“I guess it’s fuel for him,” said Jansen, who will enter the cage on a seven-fight winning streak. “I don’t need it. My fight with Rick Hawn [in October] was totally respectful. We were respectful to each other. I don’t need to hate somebody to fight them, but I think [Brooks] needs to create hatred to be able to fight somebody. I think a couple of things really got to him. I put a hashtag ‘Future Champ’ in a tweet and that got the ball rolling. Also, an interviewer asked me how I’d like to end the fight. I said I wanted to knock him out, but chances are I’m going to submit him. Brooks responded to that with some tweets. I’m not on my phone all day like he is. He’s just doing the best he can and so am I.”

For Jansen, the title fight against Brooks is one for which he has had to wait. He earned a crack at the gold by beating Marcin Held via unanimous decision to win the Bellator Season 7 lightweight tournament in March 2013, but his title bout against then-champion Michael Chandler three months later was postponed following a knee injury. He returned in October with the win over Hawn to maintain his status as the No. 1 contender and has been preparing for Brooks ever since.

“[The layoff] was fine with me,” said Jansen, who sports 10 submissions among his 20 professional victories. “I was just working on improving my game. I’ve never been in a rush. The circumstances with my knee injury ... it’s funny how things work out. It might have actually benefitted me. It allowed me to work on the holes in my game and get away from some trainers who I had a toxic relationship with. I found trainers who I have a great synchronicity with and just remade my entire training camp, and it took me a while.”

Jansen made his professional debut back in September 2007 and admits he has had to learn the art of working smarter, not harder, when it comes to preparing for fights as he has gotten older.

“I spar once a week now, and back in the Team Quest days, we’d go hard three or four days a week,” Jansen said. “Maybe it was a good thing when I’d get cut so I’d have to take time off. I never got knocked out, but it was an environment where we were swinging for the fences. Now it’s just training a lot smarter. I’m just doing what I can day by day and focusing on the process. I’m feeling very strong and been killing it with my cardio.”

While Jansen has been preparing for Brooks, he has placed more emphasis on sharpening his skills than worrying about what strategies the champion might employ during the fight.

“I’m focusing on myself,” Jansen said. “I’m not fighting him; I’m fighting myself. It’s not him against me. When I do face him, it’s going to be about what I have been up to the last three months. I’m more focused on the process, not the outcome. I can’t control the outcome, but I can focus on what I do best.”

Jansen said if he had a choice, he would prefer to submit Brooks.

“I’d like to make it look really, really easy and win the fight with minimal blunt-force trauma delivered,” Jansen said. “Honestly, though, I’d like to submit him. When I got into MMA, my mom told me to choke my opponents and not hit them, so I’m going to be compassionate to Will and choke him out. That would be the ideal, to choke him out, and I’m totally capable of doing that. He likes to shoot when he gets hurt on the feet, so I’m going to try to catch him and tap him out.”