BJJ champion and coach Craig Jones talks about Israel Adesanya’s improvements.
The former UFC middleweight champion Israel Adesanya will be going back up against his longtime foe Alex Pereira in hopes of regaining his lost belt. For a long time, Adesanya was the best at 185 pounds however last year an enemy from his past showed up and took away his belt. Much was said about the match between Adesanya and Pereira in the lead-up to the event, but many thought it would be a striking war, Those people were right as the majority of the fight was contested on the feet.
Leading up to the rematch, Pereira holds three wins over Adesanya in both MMA and kickboxing. Some feel that taking the fight to the ground could possibly make a difference. Adesanya has never been known for his wrestling skills but BJJ champion, Craig Jones knows firsthand that the grappling skills of “Stylebender” have greatly increased.
Craig Jones sees growth in Israel Adesanya’s wrestling skills over the past few years
Jones trains with featherweight champion Alexander Volkanovski. He is familiar with the ins and outs of UFC training camps and often will step in when needed. He had the opportunity to step on the mat with Adesanya recently and was pleasantly surprised.
“I trained at City Kickboxing years ago and we did some wrestling, I think I had a seminar there I did some wall wrestling training with Izzy back then,” he said on the Submission Radio Podcast. “Then we had the session where I did some work with Volkanovski and Izzy was there, we just got to go do some wall wrestling together. His grappling improvement from the first time I trained with him to now, just crazy. Obviously, he’s already a Hall of Fame-level guy, he just still puts in the work and he’s asking questions about what happened in the exchanges and stuff. He’s just genuinely still curious about the technique and still cares about the sport but yeah, he did go for a flying triangle by the way.”
The next bout with Pereira will be taking place at UFC 287 in Miami, Flordia. Jones feels that this is a fight that Adesanya can win. He feels that he was winning the entire first title fight up until the end of the fifth round and feels that it is Pereira that needs more work than Adesnaya.
