5 Ultimate Fighter champions you probably forgot about

#2 Jonathan Brookins (Season 12)

Jonathan Brookins used his grappling to win TUF 12 but was gone from the UFC 2 years later

2010’s Season 12 of TUF saw Georges St-Pierre and Josh Koscheck leading two teams of Lightweights into a 16-man tournament, but surprisingly it was a natural 145lber who ended up coming out on top. Jonathan Brookins was already experienced prior to joining the TUF cast – he’d fought Jose Aldo in the WEC in 2008 – and the soft-spoken, long-haired fighter quickly proved himself highly skilled on the reality show.

Brookins comfortably defeated Ran Weathers to make it into the house, then as part of Team GSP, he dispatched highly-favoured Armenian fighters Sevak Magakian and Sako Chivitchyan by rear naked choke before defeating grappling expert Kyle Watson in the semi-finals.

Michael Johnson was his opponent in the final, and although the fight proved to be much tougher for Brookins than his previous ones, he was still able to come away with a unanimous decision win after using his wrestling skill to ground ‘The Menace’ in the second and third rounds.

With the UFC introducing the 145lbs weight class literally weeks after the season ended, Brookins was expected to find success in his more natural home of Featherweight. But injuries sidelined him for most of 2011 and when he returned in September, he lost a close fight to Erik Koch.

2012 saw him pick up a win over the overmatched Vagner Rocha, but a pair of losses via submission to top prospects Charles Oliveira and Dustin Poirier followed, and surprisingly, Brookins then decided to hang up his gloves to practice yoga full-time.

Brookins returned to MMA in 2014 but has only been able to put together a record of 3-4 since and has not returned to the UFC – making him an easy TUF winner to forget about despite his skills.