Most brawlers on Steam or GOG are either gamepad or keyboard & mouse friendly now. Let's get you back into it! If you choose to, start with Streets of Rage 4 or anything else that peaks your interest! Let me know what works or doesn't for you!
I don't have a gamepad and I'm not sure keyboards would feel organic enough. But also, barring the occasional exceptionally delightful Guns-Gore-and-Canolli-like ("brawler" is a bit undefined, between duel ones à la Street Fighter and scrolling ones à la Final Fight), I'm satisfied with the basic brawls included in broader games (Arkham, GTA-likes, even Mad Max). In fact, even during the Amiga years, my favorite punchatron was a minigame in Cinemaware's Rocket Ranger. Because of its narrative context and its over the shoulder perspective :
This did beat the sideview hitbox of fighting games, in my eyes. And what I find in these open world games is closer to that.
But anyway, for what it's worth I do own King of Fighters 2002 which is from
*checks notes* 2002, as well as King of Fighters XIII from 2010, so I might install one of these, one of these days, until I get a more recent (and not too DLC-ridden) 3D one. But again, unless it has an interesting narrative/setting gimmick (ah Terrordrome how you've betrayed your old demo), I'm more likely to get it accidentally through a bundle than to buy it deliberately.
But of course, the feedback would immediately go to the proper thread.