Jaleel Willis I was selling t-shirts Delta Fairwondering what he would do with his life when someone came to him with a bizarre request.
There were a series of mixed martial arts fights scheduled for that night, and one of the fighters had just pulled out. They needed a replacement and were willing to ask literally anyone to do it. Including the guy who sells t-shirts at the fair.
Willis, a former high school wrestler at White Station High School, had just one request. He wanted a mouthpiece so he wouldn’t lose his teeth.
“If I die, at least I will die in a blaze of glory,” he said. “I just wanted to be a part of something. I just wanted to have some kind of glory. And I knew the only glory I ever experienced was being on the wrestling mat and raising my hand.”
The promoters made it happen and a few hours later he achieved his first victory in amateur MMA, deciding on a much more experienced fighter, thanks to his wrestling experience. One of the judges who scored the fight was Brian Hall, now a coach at Law School MMA in Memphis. Hall reached out to Willis shortly after the fight, and he is still his trainer more than a decade later.
Now, Willis is preparing for another last-minute fight, this time on a much more high-profile stage. He will meet a highly touted kickboxing star Cedric Doumbé in the co-main event of Bellator Champions Series: Paris on Friday (10 a.m. CT, MAX).
“Going to Paris will be very easy,” he said. “That’s how I started my career. I started my career as an underdog.”
Willis (16-5) has fought for Bellator since 2020, but lost to Ramazan Kuramagomedov last year in his most recent fight. He was hoping for his next fight before Doumbé’s scheduled opponent had to withdraw, and Willis fortunately stepped in with about three weeks’ notice.
He will be a significant underdog (+400, per BetMGM) against Doumbé, a dominant kickboxing champion who transitioned to MMA in 2021. He signed with the PFL (owner of Bellator) in 2023 via an offer from the UFC and it has been 1 -1 since then. His previous fight was a bizarre loss to Baissangour Chamsoudinov in which Doumbé appeared to suffer an injury from a chip in the cage that led to his stoppage.
Willis and Doumbé exchanged barbs before the fight, with Willis saying that Doumbé looked tired and could have continued in the fight. Both Willis and Hall said Doumbé is still in MMA form, and Willis will almost certainly try to use his wrestling skills against the former kickboxer.
It will be a hostile environment for Willis, who will fight a Frenchman in Paris.
“I kind of told him, ‘Don’t expect to hear me from the corner,’” Hall said. “Because I believe it will be so loud that he won’t be able to hear anything. He will have to make decisions on his own.”
But that only raises the stakes for Willis – if he wins, it will be the biggest of his career. And he hopes it helps put the Memphis MMA scene on the map.
“I’m genuinely from Memphis, I work in Memphis, I train in Memphis and I try to be successful being from Memphis. I didn’t leave and go live somewhere else,” said Willis. “I’m local.”
Contact sports writer Jonah Dylan at jonah.dylan@commercialappeal.com or at X @thejonahdylan.
This article originally appeared on the Memphis Commercial Appeal: How Memphis’ Jaleel Willis approaches his MMA fight against Cédric Doumbé
