Jarred Brooks insists he would have beaten Joshua Pacio if not for disqualifying slam: “There wasn’t any doubt in my mind”

Jarred Brooks was more than confident that he was going to leave ONE 166 in Qatar with the ONE strawweight MMA world title.

Stepping back inside the Circle for a long-awaited rematch with former titleholder Jarred Pacio inside the Lusail Sports Arena, 'The Monkey God' was ready to bag himself a second straight win over 'The Passion' on martial arts' biggest global stage.

Then disaster struck.

After initiating a clinch with Pacio, Brooks lifted his opponent off the mat and slammed him back down onto the canvas. Tragically, Pacio landed on the top of his head which immediately brought the contest to a disappointing end at the 56-second mark.

Brooks was ultimately disqualified by referee Herb Dean for spiking his opponent. As a result, he surrendered his strawweight strap to Joshua Pacio.

"Everybody that was watching that fight [knows] that it sucks that’s the way it came through but nobody knows what it would have been like if [that slam] didn’t happen," Brooks said in an interview with Sportskeeda MMA. "I was super prepared for that fight. There wasn’t any doubt in my mind that I was going to [win]."

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Joshua Pacio happy to run it back with Jarred Brooks once he's healed up

After the anticlimactic finish in their sophomore scrap, Joshua Pacio is more than willing to run it back with Jarred Brooks once he is given the go-ahead to resume training on a full-time basis.

“All respect to my brother @the_monkeygod and his team. Heads up bro, it’s nobody’s fault, we are in this hurt business, and anything can happen inside that circle. You are an awesome Champion and a Person bro. God bless you and your family always I’ll recover as soon as possible and will go back to training and hopefully we run it back in the future,” Pacio wrote on Instagram following the fight.

When and where the fight goes down remains to be seen, but hopefully, we won't have to wait as long for the trilogy fight as we did for the rematch.

If you missed any of the action, you can watch the ONE 166: Qatar replay on demand via Amazon Prime Video in the United States and Canada.