Top UFC welterweight contender Jack Della Maddalena has just put Craig Jones to sleep in a training session after locking up a tight D’arce choke on the BJJ star. It takes a lot to choke out an elite grappler like Jones even in training and it’s impressive that Maddalena was able to do so given that he’s primarily known for being a striker in MMA. He is a BJJ black belt in his own right though and although most of his wins have come from his striking, he’s shared the cage with a lot of skilled grapplers over the years.
Maddalena is currently undefeated in his UFC career and he holds a 17-2 professional MMA record in total, including his most recent win over the legendary Gilbert Burns. He’s skyrocketed up the rankings since joining the promotion in 2022 and he now finds himself inside the top five, preparing for the first title shot of his career. His next fight is against the reigning welterweight UFC world champion Belal Muhammad, which will serve as the main event of UFC 315 on May 10th, 2025. Muhammad has a strong wrestling background and has used it to great effect during his MMA career so far, so it makes sense that Maddalena is working on his grappling now.
No matter who Maddalena has in front of him next, his striking is always going to be his greatest strength against them. Obviously no fighter can rely on everything going their way and there aren’t many people in the world better to work on grappling with than Craig Jones. Jones has done great work with fellow Australian MMA fighter Alexander Volkanovski, and it’ll be interesting to see if he can help Maddalena improve just as much. He’s clearly letting Maddalena work on specific sequences in the footage but even so, it’s still impressive that he was able to lock up such a tight choke that he overcame Jones’ defenses so quickly.
Craig Jones shared the footage of him being choked out by Jack Della Maddalena in training in a recent post to his official Instagram account:
