UFC light heavyweight champion Jon “Bones” Jones is former college wrestler. His ground game comprises of wrestling by having spent his college years wrestling for the Iowa Central College wrestling team.
Jones has been training since early 2013 at Gracie Barra New Mexico under professor Roberto ‘Tussa’ Alencar. Like any former beginner, Jones wore the Jiu-Jitsu white belt.
In a past tweet by Jon Jones, he said:
“I’m excited to stop neglecting my weakness.” Truly, humility and the will to evolve and improve are the qualities of a world class fighter.
Jon Jones at Gracie Barra New Mexico
Before Gracie Barra New Mexico, Jones had been training under his team mate BJJ black belt Igor Araujo, who said about Jones in an interview with MMA.tv :
“Man, he’s really smart, he’s a quick learner, but to talk about Jiu-Jitsu you have to put a kimono on him, so he if he wears one, he’d be a white belt. But for MMA he has a good ground game, he has evolved a lot since we started training together. He really gives his whole best, and his ground game on MMA… He finished Bader, Shogun couldn’t sweep him, so he’s good on the ground.”
At the UFC 182 Post-Fight Press Conference Light-Heavyweight Champion Jon Jones declared that he was going to start working toward his BJJ Black Belt:
