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Joshua Pacio loses ONE strawweight title to Jarred Brooks

Jarred Brooks banked on his solid ground game to take the ONE strawweight title away from Joshua Pacio. ONE Championship
By Ivan Saldajeno

PASAY—The Philippines no longer has an active world champion in a major mixed martial arts promotion as Joshua Pacio failed to defend the ONE strawweight title at home.

Pacio relinquished the title belt to American Jarred Brooks in the main event of ONE 164 on Saturday night at the SM Mall of Asia Arena.

While Brooks was pushed to the limit in the fight, his prowess in the ground game was enough to dethrone Pacio.

Brooks virtually got the upper hand in the first round after bringing Pacio to the ground even as they resorted to exchanging strikes for the rest of the round.

Pacio adjusted well and defended Brooks' takedown attempts in the next two rounds as both fighters settled for the stand-up game.

The turning point came late in the fourth round when Brooks successfully brought Pacio back to the canvas and even came close to finishing him by a rear naked choke only that the home country favorite was saved by the bell.

Brooks once again took Pacio down late in Round 5, and although time ran out on Brooks to complete the guillotine submission, he impressed all the three judges to earn the unanimous decision win.

The new king of ONE Championship's 125-pound division moved up to 20-2 in his career and is now 4-0 under the said promotion even as he won his last seven fights dating back to 2018.

Pacio, on the other hand, dropped to 19-4, seeing his four-fight winning streak since 2019 snapped.

Follow him on Twitter: @IvanSaldajeno

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