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Jarred Brooks Eyes Regaining his Strawweight Title After Battle with Gustavo Balart

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Published29 Jul 2024

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Jarred Brooks (1)

Jarred Brooks the former ONE Championship Strawweight Champion has had his fair share of ups and downs in his career. Earlier in his professional fighting career, he was let go from the UFC during their cut of the flyweight division as a whole for a short period. That was after a very controversial decision defeat to the former UFC Flyweight Champion Deiveson Figueiredo and a slam TKO that ultimately knocked him out.

After his release from the UFC, Brooks competed in three different promotions from RIZIN to WXC to Bellator where he amassed a 2-0-1 record. Brooks was then given the opportunity of a lifetime from Chatri Sityodtong to compete in ONE Championship’s strawweight division. He made the most of his opportunity compiling a 3-0 record before getting his shot at Joshua Pacio the current strawweight champion at the time.

Brooks then dominated Pacio en route to his first ONE Championship title. Unfortunately, things weren’t long-lived when Brooks illegally spiked Joshua Pacio in their rematch just 56 seconds into their fight which resulted in a disqualification and losing his strawweight title.

Jarred Brooks is poised to avenge his loss to Joshua Pacio

Brooks taking the loss to Pacio and losing his title was quite unfortunate but he understood that the right call was made in the end,

“Herb Dean had a job at the end of the day and we have a ruleset and I don’t blame Herb, Herb is my dude. I think he’s a great guy and he’s got a job to do at the end of the day. I don’t blame Herb for what he did.” Regarding to Herb Dean deeming the fight a disqualification.

In the heat of the moment, it seemed as if there was no way that should have been a disqualification until they took a closer look,

“Both of us seeing that replay at the same time, they put it in like super slow-mo to where his [Joshua Pacio] neck definitely looked like it went in a weird angle.”

Brooks is at his best when he is slamming people to the mat and dominating them there but he agrees he may need to take a different approach,

“I would like to slam people, that’s my thing but at the same time, it takes away from what I’ve done in the past too. You look at two of my losses it’s because of slams so, I think that’s God telling me to stay sticky and keep my Jiu-Jitsu popping. Lessons are learned and I am humbled and I think that might have been the best thing for me, it just made me hungrier.”

Brooks has his eyes set on getting that rematch with Joshua Pacio to reclaim what he believes is rightfully his at the end of the day but not just for himself but for those who have been riding with him his whole career.

“I want to win for my family, I want to win for my daughter, I want to win for Chatri, and I want to win for everyone in this aspect that has been riding with me this whole time throughout the weird display of fight that has happened.”

Interim Strawweight Title fight on tap between Jarred Brooks and Gustavo Balart

While Pacio is still out with injury due to that vicious slam by Brooks, Chatri Sityodtong has announced that Jarred Brooks and fellow ONE Championship strawweight competitor Gustavo Balart will compete for the interim ONE Championship Strawweight title at ONE Fight Night 24 on Friday, August 2nd.

Balart is a worthy adversary winning all four of his fights since moving down to the strawweight division, most recently coming off a split-decision victory against Hiroba Minowa.

Brooks is fortunate enough that Chatri Sityodtong is giving him the opportunity to redeem himself. He believes this is a good matchup for him as he pushes forward toward getting his strawweight title back.

“I think this is a great matchup. He has his strengths that go against me and I have my strengths that go against him but it’s going to show who is the bigger dog and who wants this more and who has more heart.”

Jarred Brooks isn’t one to be intimidated and back down from a challenge and a battle with Gustavo Balart will be no different.

“Of course, he is small and he is going against people in the flyweight division. The guy has heart, I am not going to say that he doesn’t but at the same time he hasn’t gone against anyone like me. I’m willing to have a leg chopped off and I’m still going. I’ve seen people that don’t have legs that keep going. I’ll adapt to any situation that Gustavo gives me and that’s my job to adapt. So, Gustavo isn’t going to be at my level in that third, fourth, and fifth round.”

Jarred Brooks looks to stake his claim as the best strawweight contender that ONE Championship has to offer and will be ready to go into the fire to make that happen when faces off against Gustavo Balart this Friday night live on Amazon Prime at 8 pm ET for ONE Championship Interim Strawweight Championship.