Craig Jones may have built a reputation for downplaying his physical preparation, but according to his former teammates on the Simple Man Podcast, that image was more fiction than fact.
During a recent episode featuring Nicky Rod following his dominant performance at a UFC BJJ event, the conversation shifted from warm-up routines to how athletes present themselves publicly versus what they actually do behind the scenes. The discussion quickly turned into a candid takedown of Jones’s long-standing claims about his training habits.
“I remember Craig would always say like he doesn’t warm up at all,” host Ethan Crelinsten said. “I don’t know if he was just lying. He would just lie about stuff. He’d be like, ‘Yeah, I don’t lift.’ And I’m like, ‘Dude, you definitely lift.'”
From there, the conversation revealed that the teammates had pieced together a very different picture of Jones’s actual routine. According to those on the podcast, Jones was not just occasionally lifting but doing so consistently and in multiple locations.
“I’m pretty sure we found out that he was like lifting every single day,” Crelinsten said.
The group recalled that Jones had access to a gym inside his own home and was also training at a commercial facility.
“He would go to Golds, did he not?” Damien Anderson asked.
Crelinsten followed up by saying, “He had a gym in his house that he was lifting at.”
Perhaps most telling was the claim that Jones was training alongside well-known figures in the grappling community. “I think he also used to lift with Nick Ortiz in Renzo’s,” Anderson commented, referencing the famous New York gym.
The hosts laughed off Jones’s public persona, suggesting his minimalist claims were simply part of an image he cultivated.
“He just would tell us stuff and we’d be like, ‘Oh, yeah, okay.’ And then just totally not correct,” Crelinsten said.
Whether that was a psychological tactic, personal modesty, or just having fun with the image, his former teammates seem convinced the “I don’t lift” story was never the full truth.
