Nathaniel Wood and Mason Jones are both UFC veterans and top UK MMA fighters, but now they’ll be meeting in a professional grappling superfight at the upcoming Polaris 27 event on March 23rd, 2024. It’s an interesting match for a few reasons and it’s sure to draw plenty of attention as both of these men are incredibly popular in their respective countries of England and Wales. They usually inhabit different weight classes though, with Wood competing at bantamweight before moving up to featherweight while Jones generally competes at lightweight and occasionally welterweight.
Jones might have the advantage in size but Wood is the older and more experienced competitor, so it’ll be interesting to see which of those two factors ends up making the biggest difference. Wood has been a professional MMA fighter since 2012 and fought for practically ever regional MMA promotion in the UK before being signed to the UFC in 2018. He made his UFC debut as a bantamweight with a 13-3 professional record but he has since moved up to the featherweight division, currently holding a 20-6 MMA record with several submission finishes in the UFC.
Jones on the other hand only became a professional MMA fighter in 2017, but he quickly rose through the ranks at Cage Warriors to become the promotion’s lightweight and welterweight champion in 2020. He was signed to the UFC off the back of his second title-win with a perfect 10-0 record, but he went 1-2 (1) over his next 4 fights and did not re-sign after his initial contract ended. He has since returned to Cage Warriors and moved to 13-2 (1) with a pair of TKO wins. Wood has twice as many submission wins as Jones does but Jones has never been submitted in his MMA career so far, so it’s tough to predict who will end up winning this superfight.
Polaris announced the news that Nathaniel Wood and Mason Jones would be facing one another in a superfight at the upcoming Polaris 27 event in a recent post to their official Instagram account:
