KEY POINTS

  • Hiroba Minowa claims that his versatility can easily best Jarred Brooks
  • Victories over Lito Adiwang and Alex Silva proved that Minowa can get out of any situation
  • Minowa and Brooks will serve as the opening fight of the ONE: Only The Brave main card

Rising Japanese star Hiroba Minowa thinks that his well-rounded fighting style will give Jarred Brooks a tough time when they meet at ONE: Only The Brave.

Minowa opened up on his advantages against “The Monkey God” and claimed that his style will reign supreme over Brooks’ wrestling-heavy skillset.

“What I’m better at is my mixed martial arts ability. If you look at wrestling, grappling, striking, and physicality individually, he’s probably better than me. But I’m stronger in my ability to combine them and make them work together. If you look at my last two fights, you can see that,” Minowa explained.

“My style can work well against an opponent like [Jarred] Brooks if I get into it. If there’s a style to beat [Jarred] Brooks, it’s [Hiroba] Minowa’s style,” he added.

The 22-year-old from Saitama, Japan is still undefeated in his two appearances with ONE Championship after facing Team Lakay standout Lito Adiwang and current No. 5-ranked strawweight in Alex Silva.

Miroba leaned in heavily on his grappling pedigree against both fighters and was able to successfully pull out split decision victories despite being put in dangerous situations.

Brooks is no slouch himself as he used his wrestling ability in his bout against a common opponent in Adiwang to smother the Filipino and capture the victory via an arm triangle choke in the second round of his ONE Championship debut.

With reigning strawweight king Joshua Pacio awaiting his next challenger, Minowa thinks that his fight against Brooks will determine who the Team Lakay representative faces next since they are ranked No. 3 and No. 4 respectively.

Confident in his abilities to negate Brooks’ wrestling, Minowa is convinced that he can take home the victory by any means necessary.

"There are several ways, but I think I’ll win by ippon (submission) in the third round. I think I’ll win by split decision, even if I have a tough time. If there is some luck involved, I may win by KO. I may be able to win by ippon in the first round,” Minowa declared.

ONE: Only The Brave will be streaming live on the ONE Super App and the official ONE Championship YouTube channel at 8:30 PM SGT (7:30 AM ET in the United States) on January 28.

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