Will Brooks has been released by Bellator. But this isn't just any release.
Brooks was Bellator's reigning lightweight champion. The 29-year-old hasn't lost in more than three years. Bleacher Report MMA writers identify him as the No. 6 lightweight in the sport today in their current fighter rankings.
But as Brooks said on Monday's broadcast of The MMA Hour with host Ariel Helwani (h/t Marc Raimondi of MMA Fighting), he has acquired a bit of a "negative reputation" in recent months after clashing with Bellator brass and airing frustration on Twitter over a perceived lack of activity or respect.
So what does the new free agent do now? His success, talent and uptempo fight style ensure he'll land somewhere. But Brooks doesn't seem to want to just land somewhere.
As Brooks reiterated to Helwani on Monday, the UFC is his ultimate goal:
I believe that I can go out there and beat anybody in the lightweight division of the UFC and seize that title and be the man on top. I just have that belief in my body and I have that in my bones and I can feel it. I know I can do it. If that opportunity presents itself, I will definitely seize that moment. I will take that opportunity.
Despite MMA's diversifying promotional landscape, that's not exactly an unusual stance. The UFC is still the kingpin in this MMA operation.
The trickier question is: Should the UFC bite?
Let us take this opportunity to explore both possible answers to that question.
For Brooks proponents, there's plenty to tout. Brooks (17-1) won his eighth consecutive contest in November when he defended his Bellator lightweight title for the second time. He has twice defeated ex-champ Michael Chandler, once considered the face of the promotion.
Will Brooks is a legitimately top-five lightweight, and he's probably going to get a UFC offer in the range of 24/24.
— Patrick Wyman (@Patrick_Wyman) May 14, 2016
Brooks' unusual style—a wrestling base interestingly blended with long-range kickboxing—is as fun to watch as it is hard to prepare for.
On the intangibles side, plenty of fans relate to Brooks' own backstory.
The Chicago native became estranged from his parents as a youth but was taken in by a friend's family—he later reconciled with his parents. The woman he refers to as his adoptive mother, Lori Jakolat, passed away from cancer just as Brooks' career began to take off.
"Every fight I feel like she’s looking down on me and she’s got my back," Brooks told MMA Junkie in 2013. “I felt like it was more her coming down and taking me into her hands and guiding me along. She’s given me the tools to display the skills and talents that I’ve been blessed with. ... She helped me build the person I am today.”
Now for the other side of the coin.
Brooks would indeed be an exciting addition to the UFC's 155-pound weight class. His potential success there is a greater unknown.
To date, the sum of his experience with UFC veterans is a 2013 win over John Alessio and a 2012 win against Drew Dober. The combined UFC record of those opponents: 2-7 (1).
Brooks' style is formidable, but he'd face stiff competition in what could be the toughest division in the toughest organization in MMA. The UFC's lightweight roster positively hisses with danger, from champion Rafael Dos Anjos to challengers like Khabib Nurmagomedov and Nate Diaz to down-roster talents like Beneil Dariush and James Vick.
So not only could Brooks' resume look a lot less impressive in a hurry, but the division is stacked enough to make lightweight a buyer's market for the UFC. In other words, Brooks is probably more of a want than a need for UFC matchmakers.
I have a sinking feeling Will Brooks thought he would get a huge UFC deal. He’s about to find out otherwise.
— Jeremy Botter (@jeremybotter) May 14, 2016
And then there's that whole Twitter thing.
The UFC is not exactly a safe harbor for people who question their bosses' decisions. Fighters are frequently iced with extended absences or released outright for criticizing the UFC in public.
And it's true that several of Brooks' since-deleted tweets from his oft-deleted account—it's back in existence now—have raised eyebrows and, perhaps, even more from Bellator brass.
Less than a week after he tweeted that he was seriously considering a part-time job offer from Target—he deleted the tweet, but not before it was widely screen-capped and shared—Bellator pulled the trigger on his release.
"Will is a great kid,” Bellator MMA President Scott Coker told John Morgan of MMA Junkie in announcing Brooks' departure. “At the end of the day, he’s had some good fights for Bellator, but I just don’t think it’s a fit, and he should move on to the next part of his life. I think we’re actually doing him a favor by taking this position. Now he can just move on, and we can move on, as well."
I'm still in the business of Will Brooks and my business will always be good.
— Will Brooks (@illwillbrooks86) May 14, 2016
Speaking Monday on The MMA Hour, Brooks sounded a similar tone: conciliatory notes that make for a nice and needed gesture but can't mask relief and even excitement over the decision.
"I'm sure I upset some people with some of the things that I said and I apologize for those things," Brooks said, according to Raimondi's report. "I made a little bit of a negative reputation for myself. That's not who I am. That's not in my character. I'm just trying to get back to who I am."
There's a case either way for whether he'll get a chance to do that under the brightest lights his sport has to offer.
