Lito “Thunder Kid” Adiwang wants to show the world that ONE Championship has the best strawweights, and at ONE: NEXTGEN III he’ll have the perfect opportunity to do so.
Adiwang takes on Jarred “The Monkey God” Brooks in the main event of the aforementioned card that airs next Friday, November 26, from the Singapore Indoor Stadium.
“That's my goal and dream ever since . I want to test my skills against the best and especially the guys coming from the UFC,” Adiwang said.
“I want this fight to be an eye opener for everyone. A lot of people think nowadays, maybe because of the marketing, that they're untouchable, that they are the best in the world.
“So in this fight I'm very, very excited to prove that ONE Championship athletes are the best in the world.”
Against Brooks, Adiwang will probably face the best grappler he’s ever competed against, but that fits right into his wishes.
The Team Lakay star has long wanted to test how much his wrestling has improved ever since losing to Hiroba Minowa, who he struggled against in the grappling department. Now he gets his wish against “The Monkey God.”
“I've watched some of fights and yeah I respect the wrestling and his ground control. But the thing is, this is a good time for me to show my skills there,” Adiwang said.
“Most of my previous fights have been just purely striking, and no one really pushed me to fight on the ground, so yeah, I’m excited for this. This is a good fight, let’s go.”
The good thing for Adiwang is that he’ll enter this contest in top form, as he just competed in September and dominated “Wolf of the Grasslands” Hexigetu en route to a unanimous decision win.
That’s a huge help for him, as he believes Brooks and Hexigetu are alike.
“The Hexigetu fight is a blessing because yeah, has some similarities. So, it's a good warm up fight for me,” he said.
“We know that game plan was to try to take me down and control , maybe do ground and pound and win by points. But I did stop his game, so it’s a blessing for me to have that fight – great warm up fight.”
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