When have you ever seen fighter A beat fighter B two times and fighter B goes on to have the better career? I can think of two times. Hallman and Brooks are the winners of the fights in this scenario. Hughes and Chandler the winners in prizefighting at the end of the day when you count up the chips.
Hallman beat Hughes in Extreme Challenge and then went on to beat him again in the UFC. After that second fight Hallman went on to a lot of success for years to come until he was 51-14 when he pulled the thong stunt that got him cut from the UFC. At that point he won a couple more fights before he ended up on an 0-6 skid and losing the last fight of his career on a KOTC card in Idaho. Not a fighter that ever really found a home in the UFC/PRIDE/Strikeforce despite his success and two decades pro. Hughes however went on to capture the UFC title after losing to Hallman and had a 13 fight and a 6 fight win streak in the UFC. Even got to go out there and beat GSP and Royce Gracie among others.
Brooks beat Chandler 2x and found himself 15-1 and the Bellator champ after those two wins. He ended up having a few more Bellator fights before he jumped to the UFC and went 1-3 and then went to the PFL and went 2-0-1 before hitting the regional scene again where he has gone 6-1 and is riding a six fight win streak. Chandler meanwhile went on to capture the Bellator LW title a couple times after the losses to Brooks and then jumped over to the UFC and made a big splash and then got four of the biggest fights possible in the sport at LW when he fought Charles (for the title), Gaethje, Tony and then Dustin back to back. Despite going 1-3 in those four fights he is now in the biggest fight in the entire world of MMA prizefighting as he is set to fight Conor.
So Brooks beats Chandler twice and goes 11-4-1 since then and is tagging the UFC in tweets trying to get a short notice fight in the promotion vs anyone while Chandler has gone 10-5 since then and is in the biggest fight of 2023 in the entire sport.
Wrap you head around that one, Brooks is not even signed to one of the top 10 most valuable promotions in the MMA world. He is fighting in Titan FC at the moment and three fights ago he was in something called XMMA and before that it was Art of Scrap.
Its not so much surprising where Chandler is given his style and his performances but it is surprising where Brooks is regardless of his performances.