Craig Jones and Nicholas Meregali were set to have a rematch in 2023 that never came to fruition, and now Jones has shed some light on controversial practices that FloGrappling allegedly used to promote it. The pair originally met at ADCC 2022 and after a tense match with no points scored on either side, Jones was declared the winner by decision. With both men among the biggest names in the sport, naturally there was a ton of interest in seeing them run it back. FloGrappling wasted no time in arranging the rematch, booking it as a co-main event for their first Who’s Number One event of 2023.
Around a month or so after it was announced, the rematch fell apart and FloGrappling officially postponed it. Now after more than 18 months, the match is still nowhere in sight and FloGrappling hasn’t made any more statements on where or when it would take place. Jones recently went on the Lex Fridman podcast to promote the upcoming Craig Jones Invitational and he explained that the sequence of events was slightly different to what the public was aware of:
“We were meant to have a match that had been prebooked, immediately after ADCC. So we agreed to this before ADCC. I was like ‘if the price is right, I’m in.’ So I sign up for it and I’m thinking at ADCC that we’re gonna face off soon after. Meregali chose instead to have some vacation time. He wanted to go on vacation, he wanted to relax. A bit of relaxation down in Brazil.”
After explaining that the rematch with Meregali was actually planned prior to their first meeting at ADCC 2022, Craig Jones explained how the 2023 date came around and inadvertently shared some information on controversial promotional practices that FloGrappling allegedly used:
“Flo(Grappling) hit me up and they say ‘can you do February?’ and this was about the time that (Alexander) Volkanovski fought Islam (Makhachev) in Perth. So I was ‘no I can’t do February because I’ll be helping Volkanovski, that’s gonna take precedence over this match. Flo goes ‘you know what we’ll do, we’ll announce it anyway. We’ll sell those tickets anyway, we’ll get the people hyped, and then we’ll just have you pull out.’ I’m like alright, do whatever you want. That’s f***ing probably not a good idea, but they do that.”
Whether FloGrappling actually used these controversial promotional practices or not, the rematch between Craig Jones and Nicholas Meregali is still a huge match. Jones revealed that other grappling promotions have shown interest in it too:
“People keep trying to rebook this match, but now I barely even train any more. I’m busy being a promoter, travelling around. So now instead of facing the competition again, which I would do if the price was right. They’d have to pay me very well. Two other shows have offered me the match but the money? Terrible.”
With Jones busy turning the Craig Jones Invitational into one of the biggest events in the history of the sport, it’s understandable that he doesn’t have much time to train at the moment. He explained that there’s still a path to getting the match booked, but it’s going to cost a lot of money for one particular reason:
“It would have to be, I would think, half a million dollars. Otherwise I just can’t be bothered, you know what I mean? It would have to be worth it… For me to give him the opportunity to live in a world where he had won the last match against me, it’s hard to put a price on that. You know when people say it’s not about the money? It’s not about the money, it’s about me waking up every day knowing that he knows that he lost to me.”
The full interview with Craig Jones where he details the controversial promotional practices that FloGrappling used for his rematch with Nicholas Meregali was uploaded to the official YouTube channel of the Lex Fridman podcast:
