Mikey Musumeci on facing MMA fighters and their grappling ability: “You need so much more control”

ONE flyweight submission grappling world champion Mikey Musumeci is primed and ready for his world title defense against ONE strawweight world champion Jarred 'The Monkey God' Brooks at ONE Fight Night 13 this Friday. Brooks, unlike Musumeci's previous world champion submission grappling opponents, is an MMA world champion who has wrestling as his base.

Mikey Musumeci spoke about what we can expect in the bout and what makes Brooks so much more different from his previous opponents:

"They really are. In MMA, you’re trying to finish people. You need so much more control. It's significantly harder and tougher, significantly harder, tougher sports. So, these guys are really going to push it, and none of them are going to play strategy and advantages in freaking jiu-jitsu match."

MMA fighters, particularly wrestling-based ones like Brooks, are some of the toughest athletes in combat sports. The training, weight-cutting and competing they have to do since their amateur days to the pro level are, for the lack of a better term, inhuman. This is what predates their ironclad fighting mentality that makes them so dangerous in any combat situation, even in a straight jiu-jitsu match.

Mikey Musumeci, however, is built like no other BJJ blackbelt, both physically, mentally, and competitively. He gave us a small glimpse of his competitive fire in an Instagram post announcing his bout with Brooks:

"I promise you guys in this match no butt scooting 🤣 just pure action every second 🤝🏼 If there is no finish btwn either of us, we both fail, and failure isn’t an option ….. It’s Kill or be killed; die by the sword!!! Much respect to @the_monkeygod he is awesome and it’s an honor to roll with him IN THE LEGENDARY LUMPINEE STADIUM!!! I call for the 🍝 gods to help me defeat the 🐵 god 🤣🤣🤣❤️. Jah bpai!!!!"

Mikey Musumeci faces Jarred Brooks in the co-main event of ONE Fight Night 13, which goes down at the iconic Lumpinee Boxing Stadium and will stream live and free on Prime Video in North America.