Adiwang looks to turn Brooks bout into ONE Championship showcase

Lito “Thunder Kid” Adiwang will enter the Singapore Indoor Stadium this Friday all fired up when he makes his return to the ONE Championship Circle.

Adiwang takes on Jarred “The Monkey God” Brooks in the main event of the previously recorded ONE: NextGen III, and the Filipino is highly motivated to hold down his no. 5 spot in the strawweight rankings.

“That’s my goal and dream ever since [I started competing]. 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.”

Aside from that, Adiwang believes that this match will show just how far he has come with his wrestling, especially since he’s taking on a high-caliber grappler in Brooks.

With that said, “Thunder Kid” has been working double-time to improve his grappling after losing to Hiroba Minowa, where the Japanese athlete’s wrestling turned out to be his bane.

“I’ve watched some of [his] 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.”

This will be Adiwang’s second bout in a month after dominating “Wolf of the Grasslands” Hexigetu in September, and it fits right into schedule, believing that he’s more prepared for Brooks because of that.

“The Hexigetu fight is a blessing because yeah, [Brooks] has some similarities. So, it was a good warm-up fight for me,” he said.

“We know that [Hexigetu’s] game plan was to try to take me down and control [me], maybe do ground and pound and win by points. But I did stop his game, so it’s a blessing for me to have had that fight – great warm-up fight.”