Craig Jones is fresh off his first time competing for the new Karate Combat venture, Pit Submission Series, and he has made some pretty bold predictions for the future of professional grappling. The promotion is still in it’s early days and he competed on their second event, locking up an impressive flying triangle choke against UFC veteran Philip Rowe. It seems like Jones was impressed with not only what he saw from the promotion, but also his experience competing in their unique pit where the walls are set at a 45 degree angle. It makes sense too, considering it was his use of the pit walls that actually allowed him to lock up the flying triangle choke and win his match.
Jones explained why he thinks the pit is such a great stage for grappling matches:
“I like the pit wall because in MMA, against the cage, the guy can back up against the cage and have pretty good defensive postures, but because the pit wall is angled backwards, you’re falling backwards slightly, so you are quite vulnerable there. Great for grappling because if you back up, you don’t just hit the vertical platform, you fall backwards. You actually do feel quite vulnerable. So it has completely solved the solution of stalling in grappling.”
Craig Jones went a little further than that though, and he explained that the stage that Karate Combat use for their Pit Submission Series events wasn’t the only reason he had such a good time:
“Going forward I potentially might only compete in Karate Combat because, again, they take care of me, it’s a f**king fun event… The contrast between working for them and, say, working for (FloGrappling) or something is night and day. It’s an entirely fun experience and I’ll be back. I’ll be back on potentially every one of these events.”
Jones has been vocal about his opinions on FloGrappling and their treatment of athletes in the past, so it’s no surprise that he would appreciate being treated well by any promotion. That’s when he decided to reveal his predictions for the future of the sport:
“I’m gonna be a part of this, we’re gonna blow this s**t up. We might potentially dethrone everything in the sport through the use of the pit and proper matchmaking and actually treating the athletes well… Going forward, Karate Combat like it or not, and I’m not being paid to say this, is probably the future of grappling. They haven’t had a single boring grappling match yet.”
The video where Craig Jones revealed his thoughts on Karate Combat and their new approach to professional grappling was uploaded to the official YouTube channel of B-Team Jiu-Jitsu:
