Jarred Brooks grateful for experience trading strikes with wushu champion Joshua Pacio

Jarred Brooks is grateful he got to experience trading strikes with former wushu world champion Joshua Pacio at ONE 164.

In the build-up to the event, which took place in the Philippines on December 3, Jarred Brooks promised fans that they were going to see a new version of ‘The Monkey God.’ Little did anyone know, Brooks included, that his striking would be the highlight of the night.

Feeling like he’s come into his own as an all-encompassing MMA fighter, Brooks is grateful he had the opportunity to showcase what he had been working on with his coaches against an accomplished wushu striker like Pacio.

Speaking to ONE Championship about his evolution as a fighter, he said:

“I do have it. As I said, I just haven't been executing what I've been working on. So I guess it has to be trained into my mind a little bit more, and a little bit more, and a little bit more until I actually get it in that 25 minutes. You know, it was about 15 minutes, we're on the feet. So I got some good learning experience in the Circle doing that against the wushu world champion. So I think that that's huge for me.”

Watch the full free fight below:

As many ONE Championship fans would remember, it was astonishing to see how well Brooks supplemented his striking with wrestling and not the other way around. Prior to facing Pacio, the American stalwart had dominated his past three opponents via takedowns and wrestling, which goes to show how tough Joshua Pacio’s defense was.

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Jarred Brooks believes ONE champions are just as good as the UFC, if not better

It’s no secret that Jarred Brooks believes ONE Championship is “way better than the UFC.” Witnessing the significant strides ONE has taken into bringing martial arts to the forefront, whether it’s Muay Thai, MMA, kickboxing, or submission grappling, the number of elite fighters coming from these various disciplines is overwhelming.

Sensing there will be cross-promotional fights happening in the near future, Jarred Brooks looks forward to the day when ONE champions will fight against their UFC counterparts.

Responding to media questions at the ONE 164 post-event presser, Brooks listed which champions in ONE have the ability to lead the way in this discussion:

“I know Reinier de Ridder got beat, that was a really bad fight but I think he could beat I.A. [Israel Adesanya] and I think that, oh boy, at 45 he fought John Lineker, yeah Andrade, I think Andrade could definitely do it, Demetrious Johnson of course you got Demetrious Johnson, the goat, then at 55, Christian Lee. I mean we could go tit for tat with the UFC, and I think that we are more than capable. We have shown that we are just as good if not better than the UFC.”