Memphis' Jaleel Willis is huge underdog in MMA fight vs Cédric Doumbé. That's nothing new.
Jaleel Willis was selling T-shirts at the Delta Fair, wondering what he was going to do with his life when someone came up to him with a bizarre request.
There was a slate of mixed martial arts fights scheduled that night, and one of the fighters had just pulled out. They needed a replacement and they were willing to ask literally anybody to do it. Including the guy selling T-shirts at the fair.
Willis, a former high school wrestler at White Station High School, had only one request. He wanted a mouthpiece so he wouldn't get his teeth knocked out.
"If I die, at least I'd die in a blaze of glory," he said. "I just wanted to be a part of something. I just wanted to have some type of glory. And I knew the only glory that I'd ever tasted was me being on the wrestling mat and getting my hand raised."
The promoters made it happen, and a few hours later he had his first amateur MMA win, taking a decision over 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 right after the fight, and he's still his trainer more than a decade later.
Now, Willis is preparing for another short-notice fight, this time on a much more high-profile stage. He'll meet highly touted kickboxing star Cédric Doumbé in the co-main event of Bellator Champions Series: Paris on Friday (10 a.m. CT, MAX).
"Going over to Paris is going to be a breeze," he said. "This is how I started my career. I started my career as an underdog."
Willis (16-5) has been fighting with Bellator since 2020 but lost to Ramazan Kuramagomedov last year in his most recent bout. He was waiting for his next fight before Doumbé's scheduled opponent had to pull out, and Willis happily stepped in on about three weeks' notice.
He'll be a significant underdog (+400, per BetMGM) against Doumbé, a dominant kickboxing champion who transitioned to MMA in 2021. He signed with the PFL (which owns Bellator) in 2023 over an offer from the UFC and has gone 1-1 since. His previous bout was a bizarre loss against Baissangour Chamsoudinov in which Doumbé appeared to suffer an injury from a splinter in the cage that led to the stoppage.
Willis and Doumbé have traded barbs in the lead-up to the fight, with Willis saying Doumbé looked tired and could have continued in that fight. Both Willis and Hall said Doumbé is still raw in MMA, and Willis almost certainly will look to use his wrestling against the former kickboxer.
It'll be a hostile environment for Willis, who will be fighting a Frenchman in Paris.
"I kind of let him know, 'Don't expect to hear me from the corner,' " Hall said. "Because I believe it's going to be so loud that he's not going to be able to hear anything. He's going to have to make decisions on his own."
That just raises the stakes for Willis, though — if he wins, it'll be the biggest of his career. And he hopes it will help put Memphis' MMA scene on the map.
"I'm genuinely from Memphis, working in Memphis, training in Memphis and trying to succeed being from Memphis. I didn't leave and go live somewhere else," Willis said. "I'm homegrown."
Reach sports writer Jonah Dylan at jonah.dylan@commercialappeal.com or on X @thejonahdylan.
This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: How Memphis' Jaleel Willis is approaching MMA bout vs Cédric Doumbé
