On September 15th, a young promotion in the UK, Figure Four Promotions’ GrappleFest, is putting on their second event, this time featuring a compelling, world class matchup between Craig Jones and Matheus Diniz.
In the world of competitive grappling, specifically no gi, there are few names bigger than Craig Jones. The Australian star burst onto the scene with strong performances at EBI, and then went on to shock the world by submitting Leandro Lo and Murilo Santana, two of the sport’s long time greats. His opponent in this matchup, Matheus Diniz, is one of Marcelo Garcia’s top black belts, and arguably an equally accomplished grappler to the aforementioned Aussie. He has won gold at the No Gi Pans and has almost triple the amount of competition experience at the black belt level. Jones and Diniz almost got to face each other at Kasai a few months back, but that never came to fruition Finally, the two highly respected competitors will face off in September.
I had an opportunity to chat with the promotion’s owner, Chris Thompson, about the history and future of his growing show.
“Really excited to have made this match up, we had Craig confirmed for a few weeks now and it was proving difficult to match him till we contacted Matheus who jumped at the chance to go head to head in a 20 min sub only bout.
It’s an amazing main event on a stacked card on September 15th that should cement Figure Four Promotions as one of the top players in the sub only scene in Europe.”
Figure Four Promotion’s last event featured a who’s who list of European competitors including Ross Nicholls, Eoghan O’Flanaghan, Lloyd Cooper, Jack Grant, Bryn Jenkins, Ffion Davies, and Aisling Daley all of whom have been on Polaris, EBI, UFC, or Cage Warriors.
The match between Diniz and Jones will be similar to a Fight To Win Pro match, featuring a 20 minute sub only match that can be decided by judges if needed based on submission attempts. The remainder of the card will be 10 minute matches featuring this strong list of European competitors:
Main Event: Craig Jones v Matheus Diniz
Main Card
- Kameron Atakuru (ASW) v Ash Amos (Tillery Combat) u100kgs
- Ross Nicholls (RGA) v Sean McDonagh (GB Derby) u80kgs
- Jack Grant (D-Mac) v Eoghan O’Flanaghan (NSBJJ) u80kgs
- Matty Holmes (Next Gen) v Jamie Scott (10th Planet London) u90kgs
- Neil Atkins (Sukata) v Ciaran Brohan (SMA) u70kgs
- Kieran Davern (SBG) v Kieran Malone (Griphouse) u90kgs
- Chris Walsh (Next Gen) v Tom Caughey (Renegade) u80kgs
- Harry McKnight (Next Gen) v Jay Butler (Andy Roberts BJJ)
Prelims
- Kev Corkhill (MMA Academy) v Jack Sear (10th Planet London) u70kgs
- Lee Simpson (Sukata) v Jamie Hughes (Pedro Bessa) u100kgs
- James Orr (Scramble Academy) v Chris Paines (Fighting Fit) u90kgs
- Ellie Boylan (MMA Academy) v Nicola Fishwick (Sukata) u65kgs
- Ian Jones (Combat Base) v Ste Henshall (Aspinall BJJ) u100kgs
- Ian Wales (Next Gen) v Ash Fletcher (Cannock BJJ) u90kgs
- Piotr Chojnacki (ASW) v Rob Platt (McGovern Academy) u100kgs
- Andrew Hardwick (Sukata) v Brett Reeves (Cannock BJJ) u90kgs
- James Winstanley (Sukata) v Rhys Price (GB Birmingham) u70kgs
- Louise Thompson (ASW) v Georgia Munnerly (Next Gen) u65kgs
