Brent Weedman is always keeping busy.

Having participated in three prior tournaments for Bellator, most recently advancing to the finals of the season six lightweight tournament, he decided to bulk back up and try his hand at 170 pounds again.

When War Machine went down with an injury and Paul Daley had some legal troubles which forced him to withdraw from the season eight welterweight tournament, all of a sudden Weedman was a hot commodity as a late replacement entrant into the field.

The proud Kentuckian was more than happy to step up to the plate and now he's preparing for potentially one of the wildest fights of his life as he'll be taking on diverse striker Marius Zaromskis in the quarterfinals this Thursday night (Jan. 24, 2013) at Bellator 86 in Thackerville, Oklahoma.

During a recent appearance on Bloody Elbow Radio, Weedman spoke about making the jump up in weight, facing someone like Zaromskis and much, much more in this exclusive interview.

Check it out:

Matt Bishop: You're drawing Marius Zaramskis in the first round of the Bellator season eight welterweight tournament. What were your thoughts when you found out you were going to be fighting him?

Brent Weedman: Man, I was ecstatic when I found out about that match-up. I wasn't originally in the tournament but with Paul Daley having to drop out and War Machine being injured, they needed somebody to fill in. They called me and asked, "Are you training?" I was at the gym so I was sort of affronted by that, "Well, yeah," and I was planning on fighting in January anyways and they asked if I wanted to be in the tournament. I said, "Who? What? When and Where?" All I hoped was that I would get a name. I wanted someone who is known for being a badass and Marius Zaromskis is well-known for being a badass so I couldn't be happier with the match-up.

Brian Hemminger (MMAmania.com): You fought at 155 pounds for the last tournament but now you're moving back up. You mentioned previously that the reason you dropped down to lightweight was you weren't having to cut weight when you were fighting at 170. Have you had to work hard to put on extra muscle to your frame and fill it out so you can hang with these guys physically?

Brent Weedman: Yeah, a really long story short. I was working with a dude that's been part of my success in the last tournament, my strength and conditioning coach being the biggest change and we started working together about six months ago mostly on my ability and my strength. I noticed my weight wasn't changing that much, I'm still not a huge 170-er but my strength and athleticism and my speed and endurance were making these huge leaps. I found I had a lot of injuries and immobility issues that had not been addressed throughout my career and in fact they were getting worse and worse. So by addressing them I felt unchained.

One day I stepped on the scale and was 181 pounds and my nutritional team was tracking my body composition and I'd put on about nine pounds of lean muscle mass and lost the rest of it in body fat and I thought, "Wait a second. I can just do this? I can get strong and fast and athletic and not have to cut much weight? Shit, why haven't I been doing this the whole time?"

So I talked to Sam Kaplan at Bellator, didn't want to mess anything up with them. They're the ones who feed me and they were more than happy to let me move back to welterweight. I'm still not cutting that much weight. I haven't seen the other side of 185 in I don't know how long and 185 is where I started my camp before the 155 fight. I went from being one of those guys that cuts a tremendous amount of weight to, when it comes to actually cut, only having to drop about five or six pounds. Despite that, I'm much thicker, have a much more athletic frame and a much different mindset than going into any of my fights.