Weeks after being sued by the UFC for allegedly acquiring trade secrets, Bellator has fired back with a lawsuit of it’s own, accusing the UFC of casting Jonathan Brookins to The Ultimate Fighter 12 while the lightweight was still under contract with Bellator.

“We’ve been offering the fighter fights, and hindsight being 20-20, we were lied to by his management saying he was injured and couldn’t accept fights,” Bellator CEO Bjorn Rebney told MMAjunkie. “We find out afterward he was filming and fighting on ‘The Ultimate Fighter’ – that he made the show and was in the house.”

After suffering a third-round TKO to Jose Aldo in November 2008 in his lone WEC bout, Brookins (11-3) made his Bellator debut in April 2009 with a first-round submission of Stephen Ledbetter and has since scored back-to-back wins in Florida’s G-Force Fights.

Brookins’ manager, Mickey Dubberly, has told MMAjunkie that Bellator verbally released Brookins and fellow client Joey Gorczynski and was never contacted by Bellator for their previous fights outside the organization until Brookins joined the UFC.

“We believe the only reason why Bellator is pursuing anything is because Jonathan is on the ‘TUF 12′ show, and they want to capitalize for their own profit,” Dubberly said.

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