Joshua Pacio criticizes Brooks for feigning injury against Adiwang, picks Minowa to beat ‘The Monkey God’

Joshua Pacio’s ONE strawweight world title seems to be a hot commodity right now, with some fresh new challengers hot on his tail.

Two of these challengers, No.3-ranked Jarred Brooks and No.4-ranked Hiroba Minowa are scheduled to clash at ONE: Only the Brave on January 28.

‘The Passion’ is naturally keeping his eye on the competition. In a recent interview with ONE Championship, he offered his thoughts on how both fighters will perform against each other.

“This match is going to be great. If you’d look at Brooks, he’s a wrestler, a very explosive one. And he’s not a one-dimensional wrestler, he can trade blows with you. He’s willing to exchange hands and then he’ll change levels and use his bread and butter which is his wrestling. Minowa on the other hand, the last time I saw him he was really dominant. He can take you down and control you there. I think if this reaches the third round, I’ll take Minowa.”

It's a pretty hot take, considering Brooks is arguably the more seasoned fighter after testing his skills around the globe.

However, Joshua Pacio explained that he is only basing his prediction from their most recent fights. He still believes Brooks does have the ability to finish it within the first two rounds.

The Team Lakay standout also painted a picture of how the fight will go:

“I think it will be pretty much like in the match of Lito [against Minowa], that he was starting to tire up before the finish. He basically told us that he felt he was tiring. He even took the entire five minutes to rest from that low blow. I get that it’s legal, but I don’t think it was that hard of a blow. He definitely took the time to rest.”

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Joshua Pacio is not letting Jarred Brooks into his head

Jarred Brooks immediately called his shot against Joshua Pacio after winning his debut match. He has certainly not been shy in trying to stir things up with Team Lakay.

While it seems that they are already in a heated rivalry before even meeting in the Circle, Joshua Pacio claimed that it’s just Brooks doing what he’s used to.

“We’re used to that kind of style [opponents trying to get into our head]. We’ve been seeing it in the UFC. As someone who’s also been competing for a long time, I don’t think he can get in my head. I believe that’s just his style, he tries to talk trash and then face people up the rankings. But make no mistake about it, I respect him as an athlete, his skills and everything he’s achieved.”

We'll see if Brooks can move one step closer to Pacio with a win at ONE: Only the Brave on January 28.