After 20 finishes, Bellator's Brent Weedman struggling to excite fans
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by MMAjunkie.com Staff on Sep 17, 2013 at 7:50 pm ET</p>
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But despite finding continued employment in the tournament promotion and winning the majority of his fights, the fighter isn't delivering the types of performances that he'd like to.
"What was so frustrating about my last fight – which I'm proud of, because beating Marius Zaromskis is a big deal – but I was disappointed because I broke my hand in my first round," Weedman told MMAjunkie.com. "I couldn't finish him, and I'm tired of just winning. That was a win and that's great, but I'm tired of just winning.
"I want people to have their hair blown back and be entertained and excited when I fight. I had almost 20 finishes in a row before I came to Bellator, and I've had some real wars, but I'm not putting guys away like I did when I was coming up. We need to get the people excited about Brent Weedman again."
It appears the promotion remains excited about Weedman (21-8-1 MMA, 7-3 BFC) despite his setbacks in four previous competitions, so he's halfway there. On Friday, he gets his fifth opportunity to win a tournament when he meets Justin Baesman (14-3 MMA, 0-0 BFC) on the Spike TV-televised main card of Bellator 100, which takes place at Grand Canyon University Arena in Phoenix.
There is stiffer competition within Bellator, so it might not entirely be Weedman's doing that he hasn't finished four of his five most recent opponents. But he doesn't simply want to be known as a tough fighter.
"You can ask every opponent I've ever had, even the ones who beat me – they know they've been in a fight," Weedman said. "I'm trying to return to that guy. I can't even describe what breaking my hand against Zaromskis did to me. It made me so much grittier and more passionate because there was no release after all that build up.
"I'm ready to step out there and show everybody, and make them say 'wow.' And I just – and I say this in quotes – I 'just' went out there and got an extremely, 100-percent-dominant victory over a legitimate welterweight in Zaromskis. I'm still pleased at getting the win, but there was no satisfaction in that victory like I expected."
Weedman hopes to get that by defeating Baesman and moving on to win the welterweight tournament, after which he gets a chance to meet champion Ben Askren. And with Askren's recent flirtations with the UFC, it's possible that the belt might be vacant by the time the competition is complete. His fifth chance could turn out to be the most important yet.
"I'll never say 'the stars have aligned' because this is all the hard work, all the sweat and the really boring s--t I've done over the last 8 months, too, but mostly the things I've done to become a better martial artist and improve in the most finite ways," Weedman said. "I've really been working on my mental game too, and I feel like I've shown less than 10 percent of what I'm capable of.
"My coaches and trainers are always saying, 'Look what you just did … go do that in the cage. Go do that on television and show these people who you are.' And that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to show everybody what I meant to show back in January."
