Craig Jones has famously been pretty critical of Sambo in recent years and now it seems like some of those comments have reached the ears of MMA legend Fedor Emelianenko. Not only is Emelianenko one of the greatest fighters in the history of the sport, but he also came into it from being an elite Sambo competitor too. He won the Combat Sambo World Championship four times during his career and was a seven-time Russian national champion too. He even won most of these titles at the same time as competing at the highest level of MMA, including when he was the PRIDE heavyweight world champion.
Emelianenko was asked in a recent interview about the rise of one of Sambo’s best representatives in MMA right now, Islam Makhachev. He was already a dominant UFC world champion in the lightweight division but his move up to welterweight to win a second title has secured his place among the best to ever do it. Emelianenko was very complimentary about Makhachev, particularly as a representative of Sambo in MMA today:
“Islam’s base is sambo, so naturally he brings honor to Sambo. He said so in his interviews. And I think he gave a good lesson to people who say bad things about sambo. Sambo has already proved that it’s one of the best styles for MMA.”
Of course, Craig Jones is one of those people who’ve said bad things about Sambo in the past. He also happened to be operating as both a grappling coach and one of the cornermen for the man Makhachev beat to win the welterweight title; Jack Della Maddalena. Emelianenko was pretty clear about the topic when Jones was brought up:
“Well, I think everything fell into place. The man, I don’t know how to put it, probably should offer a deep apology, because his words did not hold up.”
The full interview with Fedor Emelianenko where he discusses Craig Jones and his comments about Sambo was uploaded to the official YouTube channel of Ushatayka:
