Back in 2015, Marcin Held fought Will Brooks for the Bellator lightweight title. A year later and both men were making their debuts inside the Octagon. Expectations that one (or even both) of them would become title challengers in the future were high.
Fast forward to 2018 and Held and Brooks are both gone from the UFC, having each amassed a 1-3 record in the world’s largest MMA promotion. To say the results were disappointing would be an understatement.
For Brooks, there was little surprise in his release. A debut win over Ross Pearson turned into stoppage losses to Alex Oliveira, Charles Oliveira, and Nik Lentz.