Polaris will be making a return to the traditional superfight format with Polaris 17 and the event will be headlined by the return of the elite Australian talent, Craig Jones. The last three events that the UK promotion have put together have all followed their unique team grappling format, Polaris Squads. Now, fans of the traditional style will be overjoyed to see some kind of return to normality, but with the success of Squads it seems incredibly unlikely that Polaris won’t go back to that well at some point in the future.
Only half of the headline match has been announced so far, and Craig Jones does not yet have a contender to his Middleweight title, although he’s certainly putting it on the line. He won the title all the way back at Polaris 6 with a beautiful heelhook finish against Jake Shields and has since successfully defended it against Matheus Lutes as well. The main reason that Jones hasn’t been more active in defending his title in the past is because he actually took a trip to the Light-Heavyweight division to fight for a Polaris title there as well, defeating Keenan Cornelius by unanimous decision to become a double champion.
Elsewhere, Jones hit the highest level of his career in 2019 when he won a silver medal at the ADCC world championships and has grown immensely since the last time he was seen on the Polaris stage. While the promotion will no doubt find a tough opponent for him, Jones is at a stage in his career where the list of grapplers who stand a good chance of defeating him isn’t much more than a few names.
Polaris 17 featuring Craig Jones defending his Middleweight title will be streamed live on 9th October on UFC FightPass, click here to subscribe and watch.
