An Underground King Ready For Old & New Challenges

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Submission Underground golden goose Craig Jones has barely been challenged in the promotion’s cage. While “10K Tournament” winner Mason Fowler will get his shot at SUG 16 on July 12, an opponent that has proven up to the challenge is 2019 Abu Dhabi Combat Club champion Matheus Diniz. The Brazilian was kryptonite for the Aussie last year, beating him on two occasions, including during his ADCC championship run. Yet, don’t expect the pair to run it back in SUG cage. As Jones tells it, Diniz has his own kryptonite in the ruleset used by the promotion.

“I’m dying to have a rematch with Matheus Diniz. The problem is, he would never take a match under [the Eddie Bravo Invitational] rule-set,” Jones told Sherdog. “He has done an EBI tournament in the past, but that was before he was such an established name. Before he was an ADCC champion. Matheus, whether you like it or not, is a points grappler. He does have submissions, but for the most part he wins positionally with points. I remember we had a match at Third Coast Grappling. TCG had a specific ruleset, where if it went to overtime you could potentially start in a bad position. And he showed up for the event, and on the day of refused to do any ruleset where he would potentially start in a disadvantageous position. So, we had to change the rules and turn it into a wrestling overtime. I don’t take anything away from him for that. That’s his specialty, so if he doesn’t want to jump out of that it’s his decision. But he has to understand there’s definitely more money to be made in the submission only format.”

In this exclusive conversation with Sherdog, Jones also spoke about his win over Gabriel Checco at SUG 15. Also he touched on his history with Fowler and their upcoming bout on “SUG Island.” Plus, he talked about his hopes for a future matchup with Brazilian jiu-jitsu world champion and former Ultimate Fighting Championship heavyweight titleholder Fabricio Werdum and the pressure from his incomparable success in SUG.