Back in March, Jarred Brooks thought he’d retained his ONE strawweight title, only to realise that his slam of Joshua Pacio was miscalculated, and he’d spiked his man illegally. Brooks’ initial protests were thrown out, he was disqualified, and Pacio was awarded the title. It was a crushing loss, and one that he has had to come to terms with in the months since.
Now Brooks is ready to return, and will take on Gustavo Balart for the interim strawweight title in the main event of ONE Fight Night 24, as he looks to rebound in style, capture the interim title and set up a return match with Pacio later this year.
With his bout with Balart coming up this weekend, Brooks sat down for a quickfire Q&A session where he laid out his thoughts ahead of a huge comeback fight in Bangkok.
How did you accept the controversial setback last March that resulted in relinquishing the ONE strawweight MMA title to Joshua Pacio?
I’ve got shamed a lot for that, and it sucks. It does suck. To lose a lot of my pay, my belt status, stuff like that. So, it just makes me even hungrier. God puts these tests in front of me, and I have to knock them down. That’s that, period. My worst enemy has always been myself, if it doesn’t show through my career and my losses. I’m humbled by the experience.
Can you walk us through the emotions during that scenario, and how difficult was it?
You know, life is life and it gives you experiences. And I think that I’m too damn good for my own good at the end of the day, so sometimes God has to backtrack you. And that’s what’s happening, I feel like. I got to put myself back up on my feet, and you guys will see that against Gustavo Balart.
Prior to the fight, you talked about having new motivation after the birth of your daughter. How did that weigh into the emotional impact of what happened?
It was really rough cause she was just turning three months right when that title fight came around. So, that whole camp was literally just me trying to be there for my daughter and my wife, and trying to focus on training while trying to focus on my baby’s health.
How did you prepare for this bout against Balart?
I got a whole family to feed, and I am going full steam into doing everything. Usually in my old camps, I was only training one time a day. I only needed to train one time a day, and then I took Saturdays and Sundays off. I’m accumulating almost eight to 10 hours a week, just training, and half of that is strength and conditioning. Not even working on myself. You know what I mean? I did what I did.
Now, this whole camp, three and a half months, I have been working in and out of my goals and my game plans on how to beat people in the whole division. And now we’ve structured it down to Gustavo Balart.
Do you see Balart as a big threat?
He’s a very beatable opponent for me to really show what I’m wanting to do in the division. It does suck going against Gustavo, though, because he is a smaller guy. He’s different. He’s not somebody that I’m used to fighting. Stylistically, you’re going to see a different portion of me, too.
How do you see this bout playing out?
I’m going to bring out the wrestling and everything like that, but just cause Gustavo is 4’11” doesn’t mean that guy isn’t a G, dude. He’s a baby. He’s a Boss Baby, bro. I always said it from the get-go. He’s a Boss Baby, so he looks like a baby, but he’ll beat that a**. I’m looking forward to showing everybody in the world that I can knock somebody out cold. And that’s what I’m looking forward to doing to Gustavo.
Does this fight make you more determined to redeem yourself?
I think that people are going to see a different version of Jarred Brooks this go around. I know that my capabilities speak louder than my words. Hopefully, you guys will see my capabilities full steam against Gustavo Balart.
What does the interim title mean to you?
I see it as just climbing back up to get to where I need to be, man. That’s it. I just need to keep on climbing, and he’s there and he (Joshua Pacio) is resting up at the top of the mountain and that’s cool. I’m still going.
I don’t care if anything pops in my way. There’s nothing that’s going to stop me from getting to where I need to go. And you know, Pacio has his motivations, I have my motivations, but I do think that they’re bigger. And I think that my aspirations are bigger than any fighter in ONE Championship, and I think that a lot of people just don’t see that, and it will come out.
