Jarred Brooks Confident Facing ‘Michael Jordan’ of Submission Grappling

One Championship strawweight titleholder Jarred Brooks isn’t worried about facing one of submission grappling’s purest talents in Mikey Musumeci.

Brooks (20-2, 1NC; 4-0 ONE) and Musumeci will collide in a submission grappling contest in the co-headliner of Aug. 4’s ONE on Prime Video 13 card. “The Monkey God” is looking to add another title to his collection as his upcoming assignment will see the flyweight submission grappling championship on the line. Brooks is coming off a dominant performance in his latest clash, a mixed martial arts bout that saw him dominate Joshua Pacio en route to a unanimous decision at One 164 in December. Now, he is taking on Musumeci, whom Brooks compares to Michael Jordan. And even though Brooks believes Musumeci is one of the greatest athletes of his discipline, he also states he won’t back down from the challenge.

“I'm super fast. I got more strength, and I'm more athletic, and those are the three counterparts that I'm going to use to defeat Musumeci. I've trained with Mikey and his sister, like five, six years ago over in Coconut Creek, Florida. I know Mikey's game a lot. I know that he plays a lot of the K guard. I know that he uses his omoplatas to get into the k guard and get into legs. I am going to be going in very surgically into this match. I know what Mikey is about. At the end of the day, I'm going out there and I'm showing my balls to the whole world and showing that, as a mixed martial artist in my first submission grappling match, I can hang or beat the best of all times and that's what I'm looking forward to. It's an opportunity. The pressure's on him, it isn't on me. I'm going out there and I'm having fun. I'm going to be as athletic as possible. I'm going to be in his face constantly. He's treating it like a match, even though he calls it a fight, but I'm the real fighter here and he's going to see that.”

Timestamps:

(00:00) Intro
(00:27) His summer
(01:02) Hanging out in Michigan
(01:24) Preparing for a submission grappling match
(03:18) His plan to defeat Musumeci
(05:09) Defending kneebars
(06:17) Training without strikes
(07:25) Defeating Pacio
(08:51) Breaking down his performance
(10:05) Aiming to finish everyone
(10:35) Outro