“I’m definitely on board with the idea that Craig Jones is the key, the anti-Dagestani wrestling key.” Laura Sanko credited Craig Jones as the answer to Dagestani wrestling after sharing a training session. Well, the UFC presenter turned commentator wasn’t alone. Many fans believed that with Jones in the camp, Jack Della Maddalena would show a better performance than what Alexander Volkanovski did at UFC 284 while training under the Aussie coach. However, UFC 322 proved nothing but a nightmare for the former champion.

The challenger, Islam Makhachev, dominated Della Maddalena on the ground, gaining almost 20 minutes of control time in a 25-minute fight to become the two-division champ. After the Dagestani created history, he remembered that Jones was presented as an antidote to his fighting style and posted on X, “Jokes aside, Craig Jones needs to be fired. We have to make Australia great again.” Just like that, the Aussie BJJ maestro started getting heat online for not succeeding with the MSG campaign. Still, Ben Vickers didn’t shy away from giving Craig Jones his flowers.

Jack Della Maddlena’s coach credits Craig Jones after UFC 322 loss 

In an interview with Submission Radio, Jack Della Maddalena’s head coach, Ben Vickers, said of following the criticism of Jones, “I haven’t been. Like sometimes I had to jump on YouTube and stuff like that, but literally, I have stayed away from it. I don’t wanna hear it if I’m honest. But Craig is one of them, like he lives by the sword, he’s gonna die by the sword. He’s out there bantering and making videos and stuff. So, I’m sure he’d cop the criticism.”  

To be honest, Craig Jones might be deserving of some of the hate coming his way. He used to criticize the Dagestani Sambo style even before the Makhachev rivalry started, calling it “Sambo is 100 percent fake,” in an MMA Hour interview. Now, the wind has shifted, and the trolling has begun from the other side. But as the star BJJ practitioner has been getting the bitter end of the verdict, Vickers also pointed out that Della Maddalena’s submission game has improved, and he’s now capable of defending many submissions.

Vickers added in the Submission Radio interview, “But, what I would say is, everything that we worked on in terms of submission defense worked. So, there was some new stuff that we added to the game, D’Arce defense, kimura defense, head and arm defense, all the stuff that Islam’s really good at, you know that half guard positions, shutting down those positions we worked really hard on. It’s just the next phase that we didn’t quite get going.”  

Although Jack Della Maddalena’s coach didn’t outright say it, since Craig Jones has been involved in developing the former welterweight champion’s grappling, the credit also goes to him. And as the Aussie former champ has improved his submission defense, he might even come back stronger, which could cause Makhachev’s criticism to fade away.

It’s true that ‘JDM’ lost quite convincingly against Islam Makhachev, but it’s also understandable that the Australian team will learn a lot from the showdown, and they’re already planning to make Della Maddalena more formidable than before.

Vickers shows more confidence in an improved former champ 

The Perth native has a very volume-heavy style of striking, thanks to which he has been able to defend takedowns against fighters like Belal Muhammad and Gilbert Burns. However, Islam Makhachev was just a level up in competition and exposed some holes in the grappling side, but the Dagestani still couldn’t finish him. So, with improved takedown defense, ‘JDM’s head coach believes they can build some tremendous knockout power since they won’t have to think about getting submitted.

Continuing at the Submission Radio interview, Vickers further added, “But I think the benefit of the Makhachev fight is, Jack can kind of feel like that he doesn’t need to worry about submissions anymore, which might be bad for everyone else because it means he’s gonna unload even more on the feet. Instead of being the guy that floats around and picks people apart and death by a thousand cuts guy, you might find a motivated Jack, who’s kind of pissed off, who’s going to just run after people.”  

As pointed out by Georges St-Pierre’s coach, Firas Zahabi, Della Maddalena actually uses volume to make himself harder to take down. So if he focuses on building more power, which he definitely has right now as well, it might actually make him more susceptible on the ground against other elite wrestlers. What happened against Islam was that the leg kicks compromised his striking game.

With the improved confidence in his ground game, JDM could attack more freely on the feet. As Vickers further mentioned, they’re looking for “beautiful violence” which isn’t going to come at the expense of footwork. Still, it will be interesting to see how they can improve JDM as a fighter

That said, do you think Jack Della Maddalena could make a massive comeback after such a massive loss against Islam Makhachev? And how do you think Craig Jones and head coach Ben Vickers could help him? Let us know in the comments section below.