No-Gi Grappling News: Owen Jones Stuns Andrey, Kraków Looms
Owen Jones is 21 years old, walked into ONE Championship as a name most casual fans had never heard, and walked out having beaten a BJJ World Champion on debut. That was the headline from a week that was supposed to belong to Kade Ruotolo. Instead an injury reshuffled the card, a British featherweight collected revenge three years in the making, and the no-gi grappling calendar quietly pulled tighter toward Poland. Here is what actually mattered between June 22 and June 28.
Owen Jones Stuns Fabricio Andrey at ONE Fight Night 44
Owen Jones beat Fabricio “Hokage” Andrey by split decision in the only submission grappling match on the ONE Fight Night 44 card, broadcast live from Lumpinee Stadium in Bangkok on Friday, June 26. For a 21-year-old making his promotional debut against a decorated BJJ World Champion, that result reads like an upset on paper — and it was. The win moved Jones to 17-6 and snapped Andrey’s three-fight winning streak inside ONE.
The personal stakes mattered more than the betting line. Jones had lost to Andrey three years earlier, and he spent the back half of the bout making sure the rematch ended differently. He stayed calmer than the moment, leaned on his leg-lock game, and let the judges reward the fighter who kept hunting finishes. Andrey, the more credentialed grappler on reputation, found himself chasing the scorecards instead of dictating them.
Inside the Leg-Lock War That Decided the Match
This one was decided on the mat, not the feet. Both featherweights jockeyed for grips early before diving straight into a leg-lock exchange, scrambling across the canvas in a tangle of entries, counters, and reversals. Neither man could finish in the opening five minutes, and the first half played out as a war of attrition where small positional wins mattered more than any single attack.
Jones found the separation he needed in the second half. He secured a leg lock that forced the referee to call a catch — the official acknowledgement that a submission was deep enough to count toward the score — and that put him ahead. Andrey answered with an armbar attempt and earned a catch of his own, but Jones survived the threat and kept his nose in front. If you want the mechanics behind why this style of finish ends matches so quickly, our breakdown of the heel hook in no-gi BJJ covers the same leg-entanglement family Jones lived in all night.
The honest read: split decisions in submission grappling almost always favor the fighter who looks like the aggressor, and Jones looked like the aggressor. Andrey will argue he came closer to a real finish with the armbar. Both can be true. That ambiguity is exactly why ONE’s 10-minute, finish-or-be-judged format produces these knife-edge results.
Why Kade Ruotolo Wasn’t in the Cage
This card was never meant to feature Owen Jones at all. Kade Ruotolo, the 23-year-old American who holds the ONE Lightweight Submission Grappling World Title, was originally booked to defend his belt against Andrey at the same event. Ruotolo withdrew with an injury, ONE rebooked Andrey against Jones at featherweight, and the title stayed on the shelf.
Losing the headline grappling title bout hurt the card’s top line, but the replacement delivered more drama than most expected. That is the quiet lesson of grappling promotion in 2026: the depth chart is now deep enough that a debutant can step in for a champion and still produce the most talked-about result of the night.
Kade Ruotolo’s MMA Detour and the Injury That Cost Him a Title Defense
The injury didn’t come from grappling. Ruotolo picked it up after his recent lightweight MMA win over Hiroyuki “Japanese Beast” Tetsuka — part of his ongoing crossover from pure submission grappling into mixed martial arts. He is one of the very few athletes trying to hold a grappling world title and build an MMA record at the same time, and June was the month that double life caught up with his schedule.
If you have never watched Ruotolo work in a pure grappling setting, his full-fight library is the fastest way to understand why ONE built a division around him. The match below shows the relentless, submission-first pace that made him a champion before he ever fought MMA.
The open question is whether the MMA experiment is worth the risk to his grappling reign. Pulling out of a defense is the first real cost of splitting focus. Expect the Andrey title fight to be rebooked once Ruotolo heals — and expect Jones’s win to put the Brit somewhere in that conversation.
The Ruotolo Brothers and the Road to ADCC Kraków
Kade isn’t the only Ruotolo shaping the no-gi landscape. His twin brother Tye remains one of the most active high-level grapplers in the sport, and both names sit near the center of every ADCC 2026 conversation. That event — the one the whole season points toward — runs September 12–13 at the TAURON Arena in Kraków, Poland.
The numbers tell you how serious this edition is. Kraków’s arena seats more than 15,000, the largest venue in ADCC history, and the prize purse climbed to roughly $362,000 — with men’s division champions earning $20,000 and absolute and superfight winners taking home $50,000 each. The continental Trials phase that filled roughly half the bracket is finished, as we covered in last week’s no-gi roundup, leaving only direct invitations to round out the field.
CBJJ Brazilian No-Gi Championship Streams Live on FloGrappling
While ONE owned the headlines, the IBJJF-run CBJJ Brazilian No-Gi Championship ran June 27–28 and streamed live on FloGrappling for the first time ever. That broadcast deal matters more than the bracket: one of Brazil’s deepest no-gi events finally getting a live international feed is a real step for the sport’s visibility outside the ADCC and ONE bubbles.
The entry list carried weight, with names like Elisabeth Clay, Tarik Hopstock, and Pawel Jaworski testing themselves against a stacked domestic field. For grapplers who treat the off-season as a chance to scout the next wave of talent, this is the tournament where Brazilian prospects announce themselves before the bigger invitational circuits come calling.
Women’s No-Gi Grappling Keeps Climbing
The women’s side of no-gi grappling had its own momentum this stretch. ONE has steadily expanded its women’s submission grappling roster, and rising competitors like Helena Crevar have given the division genuine star power rather than token representation.
Promoters used to treat women’s grappling as an undercard courtesy. That framing is dying. Between ONE’s signings and the women filling out the CBJJ and ADCC brackets, the depth on the women’s side now rivals what the men had a few years ago — and the matchups are often more technical, not less.
What This Week Means If You Train No-Gi
Two things from this week translate straight to your own training. First, leg locks won the biggest match on the board. The Jones–Andrey bout was decided in leg entanglements, and that reflects where competitive no-gi has gone — if your bottom game still ignores the legs, the meta has already passed you by. Second, all that scrambling on the mat is brutal on gear. A leg-lock-heavy roll grinds your rashguard against the canvas and your partner’s skin for ten straight minutes.
If you’re shopping for kit that survives that kind of session, our mat-tested rashguard rankings for 2026 and our no-gi gear function guide both break down the flatlock seams and compression fits that hold up to exactly this style of grappling. Watch how the pros move this week, then make sure your gear can keep up with what you copy from them.
Sources
- ONE Championship — ONE Fight Night 44 MMA and Submission Grappling Results — official Owen Jones vs. Fabricio Andrey result and match report.
- ONE Championship — Kade Ruotolo Out, Andrey To Face Jones — confirmation of Ruotolo’s injury withdrawal and the rebooking.
- FloGrappling — 2026 CBJJ Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Championship No-Gi — event details and live-stream announcement.
- FloGrappling — When Is The 2026 ADCC World Championship? — Kraków dates, venue, and prize details.
- Sky Sports — British Fighters Dominate ONE Fight Night 44 — UK coverage of Owen Jones’s debut win.
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