Levi Jones-Leary has just taken a step in a new direction for his BJJ career, signing on as a member of the coaching staff at Absolute MMA. He will be teaching classes at two different Absolute MMA locations, spending his Monday evenings in their Collingwood gym and Friday evenings in their St. Kilda gym. Jones-Leary is a fantastic grappler who competes at the highest levels of the sport and he will no doubt be a valuable addition to the Australian team.
Jones-Leary had success competing as a juvenile and as a purple belt but he really burst onto the scene in 2018 as a brown belt. In that year he managed to win the IBJJF European Championship, the IBJJF Pan Championship, and the IBJJF World Championship before he was promoted to black belt. In his debut year as a black belt in 2019 Jones-Leary managed to win both the IBJJF European Championship and IBJJF Pan Championship again, but he was prevented from having another perfect year when he was disqualified in the second round of the IBJJF World Championship.
He has kept up a consistent pace of competition ever since and since he was promoted to black belt, Jones-Leary has managed to defeat some truly incredible grapplers. He holds wins over the likes of Roberto Satoshi, Gianni Grippo, and Lucas Lepri. Jones-Leary has even been competing on Who’s Number One in the last year, earning an impressive decision win against Oliver Taza before challenging Tye Ruotolo for the promotion’s inaugural welterweight title. He wasn’t able to stop Ruotolo from becoming a double champion after being caught with a tight kneebar, but he gave a good account of himself regardless.
The news that Levi Jones-Leary was being brought in as a member of the coaching staff at Absolute MMA was announced in a post to the official Instagram account for the affiliation’s Collingwood location: