Will Brooks knows Michael Chandler is one of the best lightweights alive, but is still confident he’d beat him.
At UFC 257, Chandler scored a massive first-round TKO win over Dan Hooker in his UFC debut to cement his case as a top lightweight. It was a great performance from “Iron.” For Brooks, he said he was jumping off the couch in excitement. Although Chandler and Brooks had a rivalry in Bellator, with Brooks winning both fights, he still is rooting for Iron to have success.
“So I’ll tell you what, when I saw that happen, I jumped up off the couch and I was gassed up,” Brooks said to MMAFighting. “I can beat these guys, I know I can beat these guys. I can jump up off my couch right now and beat Chandler and beat Dan Hooker and beat these guys, but I’m not in a position to say that. I can’t get on media and say that, I can’t get on social media and say that, because right now I am Mr. Irrelevant in MMA.”
Currently, Will Brooks is a free agent and coming off a very controversial submission loss to Gleison Tibau. Before that, he fought Rashid Magomedov to a draw in PFL. In his career, he does hold notable wins over Chandler, Marcin Held, Saad Awad, and Ross Pearson. Although he is 2-4-1 in his last seven, Brooks is confident he can still beat Chandler.
“You get a little angry, you get a little bitter, you get a little pissy taste in your mouth because I’d beat any of those guys,” Brooks concluded. “Especially, you look at a guy like these Dan Hookers that he knocks out, and blah blah blah, as a competitor you’re like, ‘Yo, you just got knocked out by a ‘45er and then you beat up some old man Ben Henderson,’ and you come in and I get pissed at Dan Hooker because I’m like, ‘Yo, that guy’s not hard to beat. He’s not hard to beat.’ I’m sounding like a jerk now, but as a competitor, that’s where I’m at. It lights a fire.”
Do you think Will Brooks could beat Michael Chandler today?
