Craig Jones recently appeared on an episode of The MMA Hour with Ariel Helwani, and the elite grappler gave his thoughts on the rivalry between Sambo and BJJ. The battle between the two different grappling sports has been ongoing for decades now, and dates back to long before the UFC was even around. BJJ representatives like Rickson Gracie even used to compete in Sambo tournaments back in the 1980s, but it was still a little longer before the two sports would clash on a regular basis. That didn’t happen until MMA started to become more popular and attract the top competitors from both sports.
Craig Jones is obviously biased as a BJJ competitor, but he gave his opinion on Sambo pretty succinctly:
“Sambo is 100 percent fake.”
Although the Sambo v BJJ rivalry is decades old, it was largely forgotten about for a number of years. It only got reignited when Khabib Nurmagomedov famously wore a t-shirt that said ‘If Sambo was easy, it would be called Jiu-Jitsu.’ Obviously he never ended up being submitted or even losing a single fight during his MMA career, but the world of professional grappling is very different. Jones referenced this during the interview:
“Khabib (Nurmagomedov) started this beef and then we’ve had, in terms of pure grappling matches, there’s not a good sambo guy on earth. Obviously the skill set they have translates quite well to MMA, but in terms of pure grappling there are some holes in the game. They banned rotational leg locks and things like that, so it is a limited grappling skill set.”
Jones has discussed the lack of heel hooks in Sambo in the past, and it’s a legitimate criticism that has been levied against the sport by other competitors as well. Regardless, Sambo has been held in high regard in MMA circles over the last few years thanks to the success of Nurmagomedov and his teammate Islam Makhachev. Jones addressed this as well:
“I think everyone buys into the mystique of the Dagestani sambo guys, you know what I mean? Everyone. Very rarely have you seen them cracked or put in bad positions, or anything. So I think, as much as you want to believe they’re just human beings when you’re going in there, you have to really feel that and experience that to realize that.”
Jones is biased in this discussion as well of course, as he’s the close friend and training partner of Alexander Volkanovski. Makhachev and Volkanovski have met in the cage before, as the two champions met at UFC 284 earlier this year. Jones actually helped Volkanovski prepare for that fight and although he didn’t win, he showed fantastic grappling skill from start to finish. The pair are now due to meet for the second time at UFC 294 with Craig Jones acting as the BJJ coach and cornerman for Volkanovski against sambo veteran Makhachev. Jones discussed the previous fight with Makhachev, and the next one:
“So I think over the first and second round Volk was even yelling stuff out from the wall, like, ‘He’s not that strong,’ or like, ‘His grappling’s not that good.’ So I think as that fight progressed he just gained more and more confidence. So I’m really interested to see how those first two rounds play out in this upcoming rematch, because I believe from the opening bell he’s going to approach Islam with the confidence that he can take him out.”
The full interview with Craig Jones where he gives his thoughts on the Sambo v BJJ rivalry and the upcoming fight between Alexander Volkanovski and Islam Makhachev was uploaded to the official YouTube channel of MMAFighting:
