Alex Volkanovski is coached by ADCC stand out Craig Jones. Jones is infamous for his sense of humor as well as being a straight shooter.
Recently he gave a really good interview to Submission Radio and discussed preparing Volkanovski for UFC 284 attempt to become a two division champion.
Jones is infamous for winning a series of silver medals, regardless of the division he’s competing in. His current count is 2 ADCC silver medals – having lost 88kg finals to Matheus Diniz and 99kg finals to Kaynan Duarte. Jones spent a considerable amount of time training under John Danaher and only founded his own team once they all moved to Texas.
Jones shaved his moustache early on in camp, to sort of impersonate Makhachev but he opted to not stir trouble during UFC 284 media week:
“Well, obviously I have to get into character. The mustache is growing back. I didn’t shave it again because I was worried that would run into me in the lobby and give me the slap. Who’d they slap? Artem Lobov?”
“But honestly, it was pretty easy being Islam, you know, like, I didn’t have to worry about taking Volk down. I just had to be a boring man on top, you know?”
Jones went on to deconstruct Makhachev’s style calling it the ‘Mike Tyson’ effect:
“I think it’s just a combination of how he uses judo and wrestling. You know, very rarely do you find someone with both skills. Usually he’s a wrestler. He attacks the legs, but he’s obviously got the upper body attacks, too. But I think part of what makes Islam special and can be special is they have that Mike Tyson effect.”
“Everyone’s so scared, they’re like, oh, s*t, hits the ground. It’s over. You know what I mean? Obviously, no one’s superhuman, no one’s grappling abilities that good, you know? So I think a lot of people just panic and make bad decisions on the ground.”
Jones went on to say that Sambo is pretty bad as a grappling art:
“He’s just good at holding people down like he submits people, but I don’t think he has good submissions, you know what I mean? Like it’s a wrestling culture and they obviously have some submissions in Sambo and stuff. But Sambo is pretty bad as a grappling art. I, you know, like a lot of the samba guys in the tournament’s, they want heel hooks, bans, you know so it’s not a complete grappling on the ground.”
“But again, what he does well is his ability to hold people down from half guard and close guard especially. And then as they make bad decisions, he’s able to pounce on submissions. But even still, like, obviously it’s hard for me to say this, but even when I look at him, submit. Charles Oliveira If you looked at how he submitted him, he grabbed his neck and he squeezed him as hard as he could.”
“To me, I look at that. I see that as an inefficient choke. You know, if he didn’t get that, he’s burning his arms out, you know? ”
Jones went on to claim that Brian Ortega was a superior grappler compared to Makhachev:
“Ortega’s more dangerous on the ground. Obviously Ortega’s taken more losses. His submissions are better than Islam’s. I think Ortega could give Islam a good fight honestly. So I mean I think him escaping Ortega submissions will be more impressive than him escaping Islam submissions.”