Jack Shore wants to continue to put Welsh wrestling on the map.
Shore (17-0) returns to action for the second time in 2022 this weekend at UFC Long Island. There, the Welsh bantamweight faces his first top 15 ranked opponent in Ricky Simon.
For a few weeks, Shore vs. Simon was on the main card and deservedly so, but then rather randomly, the pair were bumped down to the prelims recently. Crazier still, the two ranked bantamweights are not even the featured prelim.
Shore believes he must have made someone mad in the promotion.
“I f*cking pissed someone off, I think, because I can’t work it out,” Shore told Cageside Press in an exclusive interview recently. “I know Miesha Tate and Lauren Murphy got moved to this card, so like no qualms of them being on the main card, but I don’t want to sit here and put this fight down or whatever because that’s not me, and everyone deserves the shot in the limelight. Everyone deserves to be where they are… But you know, there’s a lot of people out there saying how is the No. 14 and 11 [ranked] in the world, and it’s not even the main event of the prelims.”
“So, you know, it’s not just me being sour grapes and being pissed off, there’s a lot of people online saying the same thing, but it is what it is; we’ll come out there and put on the same show regardless of where we are on the card,” Shore continued. “I’m sure it would have if would have been nice to get our main card slot but whatever.”
The fight between Shore and Simon has the potential to be nonstop action. Both bantamweights have excellent wrestling and Shore wants to continue to show that the UK has good wrestling.
Shore believes Simon will be shocked at how good his wrestling is.
“I think he’s going to come to wrestle, to be honest. I think he’s going to come to wrestle, and I think you will be shocked by how good my wrestling is, especially defensively,” Shore said. “But we will see, you know, it’s an MMA fight. It’s not a wrestling match; it’s not a boxing match; it’s not a grappling match. It’s going to be a fight where, you know, he’s going to have to be ready to fight in all areas and the same with me.”
“I keep saying to people, ‘don’t doubt the Wales wrestling.’ You know, I know he’s a very good wrestler, but I’ve pulled off some sneaky takedowns on good college wrestlers, Dagestani wrestlers, and now Judo Olympians, so we’ll see what happens. If [we do] cancel each other out, then you know we’ve got a good clash of styles on the feet as well.”
Shore vs. Simon goes down this weekend at UFC Long Island. Watch the rest of our interview with Jack Shore ahead of UFC Long Island (UFC on ABC 3) above.
