Craig Jones has exceptional grappling skills but his humor is unparalleled. The B Team founder has been able to keep the publicity momentum going thanks to a variety of sharp takes.
Nowadays Jones is helping Volkanovski prepare for his title defense against Yair Rodriguez and his own competitive return at the UFC invitational 4 against Felipe Pena.
Jones recently delivered a vitriolic takedown of Meregali during his analysis of the WNO event.
“I call this recap: Authenticity has a price. You got to see Nicolas Meregali say that. He says that a lot. I had no idea what the f*ck he was talking about. But obviously, leading up to this match, restore, this shtick appear. And it’s obviously to blow up him, blow up the match, sell, gain popularity.”
“And what I found interesting was how totally unique it was, how it’s something that we’ve never seen in this sport before. I really like the way he approached this and he said, I’m not going to do what everyone else does. I’m not going to pretend to be someone else. I’m going to find a way to market myself as an individual for this event.”
“He went out there. He had some s*it talking. He called himself the number one. He called himself the king. He places the crown on the head and he called his submission before the match. And I really was like, authenticity does have a price. And that was mind blowing to see someone so unique in this sport. And I love it.”
Of course Craig Jones is pointing out how Meregali is word for word copying the Gordon Ryan playbook.
But here’s where it gets interesting. Recently there’s been a rumor going around that Meregali is on PEDs – which we know the IBJJF test for.
“Something else that was absolutely fascinating was Nicholas Meregali saying he will never compete in the IBJJF ever again. He’s just blown them off completely. Oh, I stand behind that message. Me? I’ll never compete in IBJJF again either. My thoughts are because if I’m going to lose, I want to make some money to him. And IBJJF is not the place for me to lose.”
“Make any money. It’s really not even the place to win and make much money. I can’t help but notice the timing of this announcement, which brings me to my next sponsor ways 2 well. Ways 2 well. Well, a lot of grapplers in Austin use Ways 2 well as a anti-aging clinic. Obviously us grapplers, we have incredibly low testosterone and even from the young age of 16, something a lot of the public don’t really understand.”
The most fascinating part of the rant is definitely the ending, in which Jones pays homage to recent posts on BJJ subreddit. A user by the name of RealProfessor8328 started sharing some interesting rumors.
The user detailed his take on the Gordon Ryan health situation adding one tidbit that surprised many. The anonymous man accused Ryan of taking PEDs as far back as when he was 17 after that infamous loss in the GI.
Jones made a call back to the viral post saying:
“Obviously us grapplers, we have incredibly low testosterone and even from the young age of 16, something a lot of the public don’t really understand.”
Now this is a callback to a wild claim from the same user – detailing that Ryan somehow shut his endocrine system at the time and has been artificially keeping it going.
This is quite a claim considering even detractors from the team pin pointed that Ryan’s usage dates back to his first EBI win – which is around the time Ryan started suddenly gaining a lot of muscle.
Interestingly, same source claimed Jones was on TRT.
