Newark, NJ — Featherweight Kron Gracie proved to be a man of few words during Wednesday’s UFC 288 media day.
Gracie (5-1), who has not competed since 2019, was in and out of the media room in under three minutes, giving short, concise answers to each and every question thrown his way.
Why is he getting back in the cage now, after being away so long? “I came back to get this fight sh*t poppin’ again.”
Was there ever a time when he felt like he didn’t want to come back? “No, I feel like they stopped the world, and I had to make certain moves in my life. And now we’re here.”
The Gracie family, of course, helped make the UFC what it is today, thirty years on from UFC 1. There, Kron’s uncle Royce Gracie won a single-night tournament utilizing his Brazilian jiu-jitsu prowess, a martial art little known to American audiences at the time.
For Kron, the 30th anniversary of the promotion holds no special meaning, however. “No,” was his monosyllabic response.
Gracie did open up a bit more about why he didn’t fight during the coronavirus pandemic, however.
“I couldn’t really fight in that situation. I had to move, and then move my gym, and get everything organized, ready to fight,” Gracie noted. “It’s already hard enough to fight when I had everything the way I wanted it. So I wasn’t going to start training for a fight if I didn’t have the right things in the right places.”
What did he do instead? Live a more rustic lifestyle, it seems. “Now I know how to chop wood and shovel snow a lot better.”
As for his opponent, Charles Jourdain, it appears the Canadian standout was simply a name Kron Gracie recognized.
“He was the best guy they offered me. That’s kind of it. I didn’t want to wait anymore for a different opponent. He was the only guy with kind of a name, only guy I’d heard of. So here we are.”
Watch the full UFC 288 media day appearance by Kron Gracie above.
