One Championship's Jarred Brooks: ‘Joshua Pacio Definitely Doesn’t Want to Fight Me’

At One ‘Reloaded,’ Jarred Brooks will fight for the chance to become the No. 1 contender in the One Championship strawweight division as he locks horns with Bokang Masunyane. A Ultimate Fighting Championship alum, Brooks (18-2, 1NC; 2-0 One) has started his journey in the Singapore-based promotion in the best outcome possible as he first submitted Lito Adiwang before upending Koha Minowa via unanimous decision. The next fight of “The Monkey God” will establish the hierarchy of One’s 125-pound division where Joshua Pacio is reigning supreme. While Brooks isn’t overlooking his next opponent, the American has already set his target on the head of the divisional kingpin.

“I think I have him down packed pretty well,” Brooks said. “I know he’s going to be working on different things because he thinks that Bokang [Masunyane] and I are a little bit more alike, but I don’t see a crazy amount of things that I got to worry about with Josh that I haven’t seen already. I think that he’s tough, he has good head kicks; he does a good job of keeping distance into strikes. I don’t see a crazy amount of things from Pacio.”

Many fans were surprised not to see Pacio defending his championship in the stacked “One X” card that went down in March. According to Brooks, Pacio is doing all it takes to avoid facing him. But things might change soon.

“They must have reached out to him and he was just like, ‘Oh, well, get Bokang and Jared fight,’ because he doesn’t want to fight either of us, man, I promise you that. Bokang is tough, don’t get me wrong, I think Bokang would beat Pacio out, but Joshua definitely doesn’t want to fight me. He would definitely push that title.”

While talking with Sherdog, Brooks also revealed he likes training “in silence” during his camps, talked about the possibility to take on a custom-rule fight like the one between Rodtang Jitmuangnon and Demetrious Johnson and more.