Craig Jones is not particularly happy with Gable Steveson.
This weekend Jones and Steveson were supposed to face each other in the final match of the Craig Jones Invitational 2, a two-night team-based grappling event held in Las Vegas. However, earlier this week, Steveson withdrew from the event citing a turf toe injury, though the Olympic gold medalist is, at the moment, still scheduled to make his MMA debut at LFA 217 in two weeks. For Jones, it was a very unfortunate turn of events he’s still processing.
“I had my doubts the whole time,” Jones told The Mac Life. “I really should have put more thought into the backup plan. .. We wanted to do the Gable match because, like the Gabby match transcends jiu-jitsu and lures people into watching the real jiu-jitsu, and hopefully they stay and pay attention to more of the real jiu-jitsu stuff. Gable was the person I thought we could do that with, but Gable really put no effort in. I think he collaborated on three posts. …
“He put no effort in. We have to put in a lot of effort to promote. … In retrospect, we should’ve gone with Wyatt Hendrickson (who defeated Steveson in the 2025 NCAA national championship wrestling match) . I think that would have been more funny. But we did sign Gable Steveson to a contract prior to him losing. Obviously, you should always wait for someone to lose something before you negotiate with them.”
After Steveson’s withdrawal, some suggested the entire thing was an orchestrated attack from the UFC, who Jones is not on the best terms with. The idea was that the UFC persuaded Steveson to withdraw at the last minute, leaving Jones in the lurch, but Jones doesn’t think that’s really what happened.
“Never attribute to malice that which can adequately be explained by stupidit,” Jones said. “I think therein lies the problem. I will say that his management did try to book him for a Dirty Boxing match two days before the event, which really started to concern me that they thought that was a great idea. It really showed the value they had for our event.
“But again, hold out hope that he would be a good human being and a man of his word, because turf toe — obviously turf toe is going to suck, especially in wrestling. It would be very difficult to compete under those conditions. But at the end of the day it’s grappling. At the end of the day, no one expected Gable to win. We all felt like we knew what was going to happen there. I could have leg-locked him at any moment. When we spoke about the match previous, we spoke about going in there with a friendly, fun, grow the sport sort of energy. There was no intent to submit this man in 15 seconds, nor was there any intent from him to break my spine. But do I think he ever intended to do the match? Yes.”
But just because he doesn’t believe Steveson intentionally screwed him doesn’t mean Jones was pleased with how he handled the situation.
“When he booked the LFA fight two weeks after, that’s truly when I was deeply concerned,” Jones said. “Then he just stopped replying to me altogether. Usually he’d be a bit slow on the response, but then he stopped replying to me altogether. … Have some f*cking human decency and warn me, give me an idea.”
Unfortunately for Jones, last-minute replacements for headlining jiu-jitsu opponents don’t grow on trees, especially not ones with comparable resumes to Steveson. Fortunately though, he was able to make something happen, and now UFC Hall of Famer Chael Sonnen is stepping in to roll against Jones in the main event. And no alleged interference from the UFC will prevent him from doing so.
“Luckily, Chael Sonnen does whatever the f*ck he wants,” Jones said. “… That’s what I respect about Chael. Chael will do whatever the f*ck he wants to do. I firmly believe if anyone at the UFC, Dana White included, said, ‘Hey, do not do this,’ Chael would be like, ‘I will do whatever the f*ck I want to do.’”
TOP STORIES
FIGHTS! Islam Makhachev vs. Jack Della Maddalena, Valentina Shevchenko vs. Zhang Weili headline UFC 322 at Madison Square Garden in November.
Altercation. Luke Rockhold, Darren Till and Dillon Danis nearly come to blows during volatile Misfits 22 press conference.
Fight. Mike Perry: Potential BKFC superfight with Conor McGregor ‘could be very real.’
Injury. Aljamain Sterling reveals details about injury suffered during Brian Ortega fight at UFC Shanghai.
Out. Raul Rosas Jr. out of fight against Rob Font at Noche UFC 3.
Weight. Bryan Battle makes weight for Dirty Boxing 3 just days after UFC release.
Mailbag. UFC Mailbag: What does the UFC’s future on Paramount look like?
VIDEO STEW
Between the Links.
Misfits 22 Press Conference.
Misfits faceoffs.
Daniel Cormier on Islam Makhachev vs. Ilia Topuria.
Aljo on Pound-4-Pound.
SOCIAL MEDIA BOUILLABAISSE
Sure. Why not.
Would watch.
Yes. Yes we were. And mostly got what we expected. Though great, nonetheless.
Dan Ige’s life lessons.
FIGHT ANNOUNCEMENTS
Valter Walker (14-1) vs. Mohammed Usman (11-4); UFC Rio, Oct. 11.
Virna Jandiroba (22-3) vs. Mackenzie Dern (15-5); UFC 321, Oct. 25.
Umar Nurmagomedov (18-1) vs. Mario Bautista (16-2); UFC 321, Oct. 25.
Islam Makhachev (27-1) vs. Jack Della Maddalena (18-2); UFC 322, Nov. 15.
Valentina Shevchenko (25-4-1) vs. Zhang Weili (26-3); UFC 322, Nov. 15.
Leon Edwards (22-5, 1 NC) vs. Carlos Prates (22-7); UFC 322, Nov. 15.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Alright y’all. Another week in the books and this one has no UFC this weekend. Instead we’ve got a smorgasbord of other stuff, including Misfits, CJI, Dirty Boxing, and more. Keep it locked here for all your updates and enjoy the weekend. Oh, and with Labor Day on Monday, no MR until Tuesday next week.
If you find something you’d like to see in the Morning Report, hit up @AlexanderKlee or @JedKMeshew on Twitter and let us know about it. Also, follow MMAFighting on Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, and like us on Facebook.
