Will Brooks is now an official member of the Ares FC roster.
The former Bellator Lightweight Champion revealed that he was supposed to make his debut with the promotion on August 1; however, the event has been cancelled due to the coronavirus epidemic. The 33-year-old was set to take on former EFC Lightweight Champion Martin Van Staden.
The Chicago native has been fighting professionally since 2011, first with XFO, DREAM, and then Bellator MMA. The latter was his most notable stint in the business as he won the season nine lightweight tournament by beating John Alessio, Saad Awad, and Alexander Sarnavskiy. The MMA veteran would then go on to defeat Michael Chandler and win the Bellator Lightweight title.
Brooks would successfully defend the belt against Dave Jansen (Bellator 136) and Marcin Held (Bellator 145) before vacating the championship and moving onto the UFC. The lightweight’s debut against Ross Pearson was a success; however, Brooks would end up losing his fights against Alex Oliveira, Charles Oliveira, and Nik Lentz.
The former Bellator Lightweight Champion was released from the promotion shortly thereafter and has mostly been competing in Professional Fighters League since. Brooks enters the promotion with a record of 20 wins and 5 losses. As of this writing, there’s no word on when he’ll be rescheduled to fight.