This is the live blog for Craig Jones vs. Chael Sonnen, the grappling superfight set for the second day of CJI 2 this Sunday at Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas, Nev.<\/p>\n
Jones was initially scheduled to face Olympic gold medalist Gable Steveson in the matchup, but Steveson withdrew from the matchup earlier this week due to undisclosed reasons \u2014 although Jones and the promotion says it was due to \u201cturf toe.\u201d Jones said that this will likely be his final competitive grappling bout before calling it a career, as he\u2019ll face Sonnen for the second time on the jiu-jitsu stage.<\/p>\n
Sonnen steps in on super short notice and looks to exact some revenge on Jones in the process. In their first meeting, Jones got the victory at the 2017 ADCC World Championships. Sonnen, a multi-time UFC title challenger during his MMA career, competes in a combat sports bout for the first time in over a year \u2014 a exhibition boxing match against Anderson Silva in June 2024. The matchup was declared a draw after it went the distance in the five-round contest.<\/p>\n
Check out the Craig Jones vs. Chael Sonnen live blog from Sunday\u2019s CJI 2 event below.<\/p>\n
Pre-match: Chael Sonnen, 14 years older and 20 pounds heavier, walks to the pit to grapple Craig Jones. Sonnen takes the mic to introduce himself to the crowd \u2014 and verbally attack Jones\u2019 fans in attendance. Jones walks to the pit from the stands as a singer performs live \u2014 after a clip shows Jones pretending to do drugs in the bathroom. Gabi Garcia helps Jones undress and enter the pit.<\/p>\n
Round 1: Referee Big John McCarthy gets the action started and Sonnen takes Jones down. Jones attacks with a buggy choke and Sonnen is out cold within seconds. Well\u2026 it\u2019s over.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This is the live blog for Craig Jones vs. Chael Sonnen, the grappling superfight set for the second…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":110089,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,1347,785,85,787,1396],"class_list":{"0":"post-110088","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mma","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-fighting","11":"tag-latest-news","12":"tag-mma","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-ufc","15":"tag-ufc-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110088","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=110088"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110088\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/110089"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=110088"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=110088"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=110088"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}