Craig Jones has only recently started his new podcast but he’s already revealing some interesting information, including why he turned down a recent offer for a match with Gordon Ryan. The offer came through to compete in the main event of UFC Fight Pass Invitational 3, in what would have been the fourth match between the two men. All three of their previous meetings have been won by Ryan, but Jones was eager to take the match at first under a simple condition:
“It was only five, six weeks out from the event and they called me to face Gordon (Ryan). And they were like what ruleset do you want to do? And I’m like, ‘well it’s six weeks away, can we do 15 minutes? You want me to face a guy who’s bigger than me that prefers longer matches on six weeks’ notice.’”
Unfortunately for the fans who might be eager to see another match between Craig Jones and Gordon Ryan, apparently this was an unacceptable condition:
“And they’re like ‘okay, we’ll talk to Gordon.’ They come back, Gordon’s like ‘25 minutes or nothing.’
“I’m just like we can do that later, but we’re not gonna do that in six weeks. At least meet in the middle here.”
As fans undoubtedly know by now, they obviously couldn’t meet in the middle as Gordon Ryan was instead booked to compete against Vinny Magalhaes. In a strange twist of fate one of Jones’ teammates actually stepped in at the last minute when Magalhaes withdrew, resulting in the second match between Ryan and Nicky Rodriguez instead. Rodriguez had some moments of success in the match but neither he nor Ryan could get the finish in regulation-time and Ryan ended up winning in EBI overtime instead.
The full episode of El Segundo with Craig Jones, including the segment where he explains his reasons for turning down the recent match with Gordon Ryan, was uploaded to the official YouTube channel of B-Team Jiu-Jitsu:
