There is clearly no love lost between Craig Jones and Nicholas Meregali, but Jones has now found a new angle by revealing that Meregali allegedly has a teenage girlfriend. The two men have not had a particularly long rivalry and in fact, they didn’t even acknowledge one another at all for the majority of their careers. It all started when they met on the mats in the semi-final of the under 99kg division at ADCC 2022, where Jones won a judge’s decision and advanced to the final. They have gone back and forth on social media a few times since then, but to date that’s still the only time that they’ve come up against one another.
A rematch was booked for a Who’s Number One event in the beginning of 2023 but sadly for fans around the world and Meregali himself, it never actually came to fruition. The rematch was just postponed originally but well over a year after it was supposed to take place, it still hasn’t been rebooked. Given that Meregali is 30 and Jones is 32; the longer the rematch goes unbooked, the less likely it is to take place. That hasn’t stopped them from clashing on social media though, and this latest example in particular has caused quite a stir.
Craig Jones originally highlighted the fact that Nicholas Meregali allegedly had a teenage girlfriend in a recent post to his official Instagram account. He shared Meregali’s story and then made the following statement over the top:
“Well, well, well, what do we have here? Mr ‘authenticity has a price’ celebrating his young, mature, teenage, 19 year-old girlfriend’s birthday. What is happening?!”
It’s worth remembering of course that the legal age of consent in the United States ranges from 16 to 18 depending on the state. Given that Meregali celebrated the fact that his apparent girlfriend had turned 19, there was nothing in the original story to suggest that anything illegal had taken place. Jones then shared that same post to his story with a rather ominous statement:
It didn’t take long for Jones to reveal what he was referring to either, as he quickly followed that up with another two stories highlighting some of Meregali’s activity on his alleged girlfriend’s social media accounts:
Jones is known for his witty sense of humour and he included the Kendrick Lamar’s ‘Not Like Us’ in his Instagram stories too, more specifically the line “Say Drake, I hear you like ‘em young”. The inference was pretty obvious, but Jones didn’t stop there either. He also made several comments on his original post during the same time and one in particular read:
“Where do you find those mature 18 year olds? High School? Take a seat over there.”
This is most likely another reference, this time to NBC’s ‘To Catch A Predator’ where host Chris Hansen would say what became his catchphase ‘Why don’t you take a seat over there.’ when he met up with someone who was talking to adults posing as underaged children online. The inference that Jones was trying to make were pretty clear and knowing what he’s like, this probably isn’t the last time that he’ll bring up his alleged teenage girlfriend when he gets into it with Nicholas Meregali.
