The “Battle of the Sexes” on the jiu-jitsu mats got off to a wild start with a forced kiss during a pre-fight face-ff, but it ended the way most thought it would.
Craig Jones of Australia grabbed the face of his much larger female opponent, Gabi Garcia of Brazil, and kissed her during the pre-fight face-off. An act that was…shall we say… underappreciated by Garcia.
“Man. You’re a b*tch man. Craig, really? F*ck you – you crossed the line, crossed the line, crossed the line,” Garcia shouted.
Jones quipped on social media that “Brazilians can’t take a choke.”
What was less appreciated was that Jones choked the massive Brazilian out for a submission victory in the second round.
In addition to being two inches taller than Jones, Garcia is also 30 pounds heavier than Jones, listed as 205.
So, despite the size advantage, Jones still finished the fight.
Reaction flowed in quickly on X.
Jiu-jitsu may not be the greatest test of male physical dominance in sports. As a practitioner of the “gentle art,” jiu-jitsu is a sport built for smaller, weaker opponents. It is rare, but not unheard of, for a female opponent to defeat a male opponent.
And Craig Jones is a world-class jiu-jitsu player.
That being said, the male opponent will win over 99 percent of the time.
The battle between the sexes comes after a considerable row over the International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) inclusion of two fighters – Algeria’s Imane Khelif and Taiwan’s Lin Yu-ting – in this summer’s Olympic Games.
In 2023, both fighters failed the International Boxing Association’s (IBA) gender test. Khelif and Yu-ting both won gold in their respective weight classes.