The featherweight title is on the line when Owen Jones and Gianni Grippo meet at Polaris 36 on March 7th, 2026. The title is currently vacant because the promotion’s previous champion, Keith Krikorian, was unable to defend the belt due to scheduling conflicts. Krikorian is still a fan-favorite of course and after beating Cameron Donnelly for the title at Polaris 27, it seems likely that he’ll be next in line for a shot at the new champion after this. Until then, Krikorian is going to be out of the picture and all eyes will be on this exciting match between Jones and Grippo instead.
This will actually be the first time that Grippo has competed on the Polaris mats for almost a decade, as he was one of the very first people to do so. He made his promotional debut back at Polaris 2 in 2015, when Jones was just 11 years old and before he had even begun training in the sport. Grippo won his debut match with Tom Barlow by submission and returned at Polaris 3, where he fought Bruno Frazzato to a draw. That was the last time that Grippo competed for Polaris but he’s since travelled all around the world and won on all of the biggest stages in the sport, more than earning a title-shot on his return.
While all this was happening; Jones was quietly at work at Apex Jiu-Jitsu, developing the skills that later allowed him to burst on to the scene as a 19 year-old purple belt winning the ADCC European Trials in 2023. Jones has gone from strength to strength since then and on his very first attempt, he made it all the way to 4th place in a stacked under 66kg division at ADCC 2024. Jones has quickly established himself as one of the best lighter grapplers in Europe and now he gets the chance to solidify that by taking on one of the legends of his weight class.
The full Polaris 36 event, including the title-fight between Owen Jones and Gianni Grippo, will be available to watch live on March 7th, 2026 on FloGrappling, click here to subscribe and watch.
