"That was an emotional roller coaster" - Jarred Brooks recalls how triumph turned to agony after realizing he spiked Joshua Pacio
Everything was going perfectly for Jarred Brooks in the strawweight division until suddenly, it wasn't. 'The Monkey God' had won four in a row to become the strawweight world champion after defeating Joshua Pacio in 2022.
The two top strawweights were set to meet again at ONE 166 after Pacio went away and returned to the win column.
It was once again playing out perfectly for the defending champion. He believed that when the referee stepped in, he had just stopped his opponent inside the opening minute to defend the title in Qatar.
Instead, official Herb Dean had to call Brooks down from the side of the cage to say that he had been disqualified for spiking Pacio on his head, meaning that he would lose the title.
In a crazy few moments that no one could have seen coming, Brooks went from cloud nine to rock bottom and was confused as to why or how he could be disqualified for something he believes wasn't intentional.
The former champion reflected on that moment in a recent interview with ONE Championship:
"That was an emotional roller coaster, man. It was me thinking I had just won another $50,000 bonus, and I'm climbing on top of the fence, I'm screaming at the crowd, the crowd was screaming back at me and they're not supposed to, and it's just dope. We had a cool experience in that 4 seconds before Herb Dean called me back down."
Jarred Brooks is back with a vengeance
After the dramatic events in March, Jarred Brooks is set to return to ONE Fight Night 24 and will look to get back to winning ways.
A third fight with Joshua Pacio still needs to happen to settle the score, but with the champion injured, Brooks will now face Gustavo Balart for the interim title on August 2.
He doesn't believe that he should have lost the title so winning it back will only feel that much better if he's able to get past a difficult opponent in Cuban wrestling specialist Balart.
ONE Fight Night 24 will air live in US Primetime, free of charge for Prime Video subscribers in the United States and Canada.