Jesse “The Ghost” Gross is ready to make things right in his young MMA career as he has taken a last minute tilt against tough, unorthodox, Michigan puncher Daron Cruikshank this Saturday night at The Meltdown in Sarnia.
Gross burst on the MMA scene in 2009-2010 with six consecutive wins before a very controversial loss against Brad Cardinal in May of this year derailed his run. If not for a questionable referee stoppage “The Ghost” could have easily remained an undefeated 7-0 in his career.
Gross then made his debut in Bellator in July and lost a tough one to Alexandre Bezerra via rear naked choke. It has been a tough time for Gross to meet the expectations he set with his impressive start. His opponent this weekend knocked out Cardinal in the first round in June.
The Meltdown, is presented by The Score Fighting Series. The event goes down from Sarnia, Ontario, and is a packed card filled with local MMA stars.
Find out who “The Ghost” picks in Meltdown’s Clements vs Clementi in the full interview video attached.
Here are some interview highlights…
On his opponent Daron Cruickshank
“I have a last minute fight here against Daron Cruickshank. I’ve known Daron since I started fighting. I made my amateur debut and I think he made his debut or his second fight the same night so,” he said.
“We came up together in amateur in XFC and he was the welterweight champion and I was actually the lightweight champion so. We were always the same size and I was always asking him when he is gonna drop down because I thought he should be fighting at lightweight, now he’s finally made the drop down and crushed through some top ten Canadian lightweights now.”
“He is making quite a name for himself over here now he just became the Ringside lightweight champion by beating Mike Ricci and he’s no slouch.”
“Ill tell you right now he definitely has better wrestling than I do, If he chooses to take it down it’s going to be a tough night for me to try to stop it.”
“Because he is such a good wrestler he gets away with a lot of wild stuff because people can’t take him down. He’ll go out there and try to throw a lot of flashy kicks, like spinning this and flying whatever. I’m hoping to be a step up from strikers he’s faced in the past so he won’t be able to get away with that.”
On what this fight means to his career and future in MMA
“I’ve got my back stuck against the wall and I’m gonna fight to get out of it.”
Dwight Wakabayashi is a Featured Columnist for Bleacher Report MMA and correspondent for MMACanada.net.
Catch him on Facebook and Twitter at wakafightermma.
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