Mikey Musumeci has his next title-defense booked against Jarred Brooks at ONE Fight Night 13 on August 4th, 2023. It’s a surprising matchup for several reasons, not least of all because Brooks is the reigning ONE Championship strawweight MMA champion and has not competed under any grappling ruleset in quite some time. He does have plenty of experience in grappling though, as his background is in wrestling where he won a state championship before transitioning to MMA. Since doing so, he’s been able to use that high level of grappling ability to great effect and has competed for most of the world’s top MMA promotions.
Brooks was undefeated in 13 amateur MMA fights, spending the years between 2010 and 2014 perfecting his craft before turning professional. He then put together a 12-0 record in just 2 years of becoming a professional fighter, primarily on the regional MMA circuit with a single fight for World Series of Fighting (now PFL). Those performances earned him a chance to compete in the UFC, where he went 2-2 before being cut from the promotion. One of his only losses there actually came against the eventual champion of the flyweight division, Deiveson Figueiredo, a fight that he only lost by split decision. He then went 2-0 (1) fighting for RIZIN and another regional promotion before he settled at ONE Championship, where he’s brought his record up to 20-2 (1) and managed to become the strawweight world champion.
Now it seems that Jarred Brooks wants a new challenge, as he’ll be taking on one of the most dominant champions at ONE Championship, Mikey Musumeci. Musumeci most recently defended his title against the reigning IBJJF no gi world champion Osamah Almarwai, and he’d practically cleaned out the potential opponents that ONE Championship could give him. Musumeci was aware of this himself, which is why he had started to campaign for a fight against Demetrious ‘Mighty Mouse’ Johnson, the promotion’s reigning flyweight MMA world champion.
In the meantime, ONE Championship have also started to improve their submission grappling roster by not only booking the debut of Diego ‘Pato’ Oliveira, but also by signing contracts with Thalison Soares and Lucas Pinheiro. Now it seems like they’ve listened to Musumeci’s request for a champion v champion match by booking him against one of their best MMA fighters, but not quite the same name he was asking for. Regardless, Mikey Musumeci v Jarred Brooks will be an interesting matchup and the wrestling advantage that Brooks has may just be enough to see him through to victory if he’s able to fend off Musumeci’s relentless attacks.
ONE Championship announced the news that Mikey Musumeci and Jarred Brooks will fight at ONE Fight Night 13 on August 4th, 2023 in a post to their official Instagram account:
