Undefeated at 8-0, featherweight Lucas Brennan returns to the Bellator cage this Friday for Bellator 298, where he gets a stiff test in the form of Brazil’s Weber Almeida.
Brennan doesn’t necessarily fit the tough guy mould you might expect from a pro fighter. He carries the nickname “Skywalker,” after all, and sat down (virtually) with Cageside Press ahead of his latest fight from his record room, housing a 1,300 album strong collection. His pick of the litter? 1994’s Illmatic by Nas. All those albums, and a solid reading library as well, “keeps me from overdoing the gym,” Brennan explained.
Of course, collecting LPs isn’t always cheap. Especially not when you put together a collection of 1,000+. “Ironically, one of the most expensive ones in here is the Minecraft soundtrack,” revealed Brennan, “but don’t judge me.”
We’re not about to. The 23-year old, after all, could no doubt choke us, or just about anyone it seems, out. Six of his eight Bellator fights have ended in submission, with four rear-naked chokes and two anacondas. On the ground is not where you want to be with Lucas Brennan.
So just how does Almeida’s ground game shape up, in Brennan’s opinion? “It’s good. I would get, seeing his striking, why it’s not his main game plan. Clearly he plays his strengths, and that’s the right way to go about it, I do the same,” he observed. “He has good jiu-jitsu, he has good wrestling, he’s just not a jiu-jitsu guy. So there’s a difference, I guess, in that. Solid ground game, and very athletic to make up for places where he may not technically be quite as sound.”
Brennan sees Almeida as a logical next step in his career. “For sure, for sure. We have a similar amount of experience, and he’s a tough f*cking guy. He’ll be fun, and as far as styles going, he’s one of the more unique ones as far as featherweight goes. With his karate background, and that sort of Machida-style. it’ll be fun. It’s a logical move forward.”
Despite being ranked at 145lbs, meanwhile, Brennan is not at all upset about not being booked against a ranked opponent. In fact, he didn’t even want to be in the rankings himself at this point.
“To be honest when I originally got ranked, I kind of told them that I didn’t want to be yet. I was like ‘let me fight another guy or two’ and they’re like ‘okay, cool.’ And then they just threw me on there anyways,” said Brennan. “And I was like ‘alright, well, here we are.’ I’m not opposed to fighting someone in or out of the rankings. As great as it is, and I saw I believe the other day they took out A.J [McKee, who has moved to lightweight], so a bunch of us bumped up a spot. As much as it’s cool, I’ve got eight fights. So anything to get more fights in, regardless of ranking, I’m going to be stoked.”
To be fair to Bellator, in a sense they have no say — the rankings are voted on by a panel of media members.
8-0 is around the time prospects like Brennan really start to get noticed. He’s fought the entirety of his career for Bellator, one of several blue chippers the promotion picked up a few years back. As for the pressure that comes with a climbing unbeaten record, “I like to think I tune it out pretty well,” said Brennan. “I try not to really think about it. Regardless of how many fights I’ve won and how long the streak is, I still have to deal with this guy now. It’s cool, I’m not not appreciative of where I’m at right now and what I’ve had to do to get there. But I try to keep my focus on the guy in front of me and just deal with that.”
Watch our full interview with Bellator 298’s Lucas Brennan above. Brennan faces Weber Almeida on Friday, August 11, 2023 at the Sanford Pentagon in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.
