Team Lakay Coach Breaks Silence On Joshua Pacio Vs. Jarred Brooks Postponement

ONE Championship revealed the card for the upcoming ONE 158 event this coming Friday, June 3, and many fans were taken aback when the main event was changed.

It was supposed to be headlined by the strawweight title clash between current champion Joshua Pacio of Team Lakay and American wrestler Jarred Brooks, but the promotion elected to postpone it due to a "scheduling conflict."

International Business Times sports editor and combat sports analyst Nissi Icasiano was able to speak with Team Lakay head coach Mark Sangiao, who could not hold back his frustration with the matter.

“[My immediate response was] ‘What? Am I reading this right? Why? I could have traveled to Vietnam [for the 2021 Southeast Asian Games] with the athletes!’ But after the emotion subsided, there is no other rational choice left but to keep supervising and preparing Joshua [and] have him keep training. We’ve already started gathering momentum as the fight gets closer,” the decorated mixed martial arts trainer told Icasiano.

With regards to Pacio’s preparations for the eventual fight, Sangiao noted that the reigning king of the strawweight division is always ready to scrap when the time comes.

“Even before the Jarred and Bokang [Masunyane] match, whoever wins between them, Joshua knows he’ll need to defend the belt soon. And he has been gearing [up] for that moment,” he shared.

Many fans were expecting to see the pair end their long-running strife with each other at ONE 158 as the hype generated from the event was mainly because of Brooks’ trash-talking style that he put on full display with multiple call-outs of the Filipino titleholder.

But for Pacio, Sangiao asserted that it is all fun and games for him and the rest of Team Lakay.

“We are actually finding his swaggering entertaining and funny. Remember that tiny TV of Joshua? Jarred didn’t even leave that out–that he’s going to replace it with a bigger one, if he wins,” Sangiao laughingly remarked.

“But really, I’m not surprised at all about how Joshua is mentally playing Jarred’s verbal jabs. Joshua is smart enough not to engage. In fact, he’s thankful that Jarred is doing all the baloney to promote the fight.”

Pacio, 26, has not seen action since September 2021 when he pulled off an astounding victory over fierce rival Yosuke Saruta in their trilogy encounter at ONE: Revolution.

With regards to the thought of Pacio garnering ring rust, Sangiao mentioned that “when you think no one is in the gym, Joshua is there soaking in sweat. He’s a champion because he has that champion attitude.”

“The solid driving force is to safeguard the belt. This is the only belt that we have now and Joshua cannot afford to lose it. This is for and will stay in the Philippines."

On the topic of silver linings, Sangiao just explained that there was none in this situation.

“It’s the other way around actually. Optimistic as we are, we wanted the original date. Jarred has been actively fighting and when was his latest fight? A month ago? I think Jarred needed more than a month to recover for another fight as big as this,” the lynchpin of the famed La Trinidad, Benguet-based camp said.

With things developing out of their control, Pacio and Team Lakay will have no choice but to wait for the next announced date.

“There is no other plan but to keep training, to keep preparing. You’ll never know when ONE will be announcing the new date, it can be tomorrow or the day after or next week,” Sangiao stated.