Jarred Brooks tells those who say he’s holding the belt to ‘shut up’: “I want to fight every other month”

Reigning and undisputed ONE strawweight MMA world champion Jarred Brooks has a message for all his detractors and potential future opponents – keep your mouths shut.

Brooks captured the highly coveted ONE Championship gold last December when he outscored former king Joshua ‘The Passion’ Pacio in Manila to take home the belt. Since then, he's yet to defend the title and has instead opted to take a side job and challenge Mikey Musumeci for the flyweight submission grappling belt.

This drew the ire of many of the strawweight division’s hopefuls, who claim Brooks is holding up the division.

In a recent interview with the South China Morning Post, Brooks took a swipe at his contemporaries and told them to get in line.

He said:

“I think that all these fighters saying that I'm just keeping the championship, shut up. I want to fight every other month. I mean, I got a kid coming. You know? I want to be put on every other month. I want to have a good fanbase, and you’ve got to fight every other month to have that fanbase, especially in a weight class like strawweight when you're trying to promote it, you know?”

The expectant father is back to MMA training after falling short of victory against Musumeci at ONE Fight Night 13 last August. Brooks is eagerly anticipating news of who he will face in his first world title defense.

One man who has emerged as a frontrunner is Pacio himself, who recently defeated no.5-ranked strawweight MMA contender Mansur Malachiev of Russia at ONE Fight Night 15 last week.

Brooks took the belt from Pacio at ONE 164 in Manila last year, a close five-round battle. Fans would love to see the two run it back in short order.