Jarred Brooks has respect for Joshua Pacio but says animosity was real: “There’s real beef there”

‘The Monkey God’ Jarred Brooks does not want people to confuse his animosity towards former ONE world champion Joshua Pacio as a lack of respect.

On Saturday, Brooks scored the biggest win of his mixed martial arts career, defeating Pacio in a highly-entertaining main event at the Mall of Asia Arena in Manila. ‘The Monkey God’ earned a unanimous decision victory to become the promotion’s newest strawweight world champion.

In the months leading up to the contest, Jarred Brooks had a lot of harsh words toward his opponent. While speaking at the ONE 164 post-fight press conference, ‘The Monkey God’ made it clear that while the animosity is real, he has complete respect for Pacio:

“No. The animosity, when you get in front of somebody that wants to fight you, and when you make eye contact, there’s animosity. There’s real beef there. But you know, the respect is there as well after the fight and that’s earned inside the Circle.”

Since coming up short against Brooks at ONE 164 on Saturday, Joshua Pacio has broken his silence on Instagram, saying:

“We didn’t get the Win last Saturday but I thank God I learned a lot and saw what to improve more as an athlete, what I love about this sport is it is a continuous learning and leveling up and that’s what I aim to do, I’ll be back stronger, smarter and more dangerous.”

Watch the presser below:

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Jarred Brooks ready to run it back with Joshua Pacio in the United States

Jarred Brooks believes his story with Joshua Pacio is far from over. In fact, ‘The Monkey God’ is already eyeing a potential rematch with Pacio, but this time, it’ll be on Brooks’ home turf:

"This isn’t the end with Joshua Pacio. We were just talking about it too. So, I would love to give him another chance in Denver in the United States. He can come to my home turf and we can see where it goes from there."

ONE Championship recently announced that on May 5th, 2023, they will be making their long-awaited debut in the United States with ONE on Prime Video 10. The event is scheduled to be headlined by a highly-anticipated trilogy bout between ONE flyweight world champion Demetrious Johnson and former titleholder Adriano Moraes.

If Jarred Brooks gets his way, his first ONE world title defense could be in his home country and it could very well be against the man he took the title from on Saturday night.