Kron Gracie breaks silence on UFC 288 loss: ‘I threw no punches because of bad advice’

Kron Gracie broke his silence nine days after suffering a decision loss to Charles Jourdain at UFC 288 on May 6.

Returning to the octagon 3 1/2 years after his previous bout, the multiple-time jiu-jitsu champion went the distance with Jourdain in a 15-minute bout in Newark, N.J. UFC President Dana White later later described the fight as “like coming out of a time capsule in 1995,” saying the son of Rickson Gracie “came in very limited tonight.”

The 34-year-old opened up about the defeat on Monday, saying he was following “bad advice.”

“In a lifetime of fighting, it’s always been a fight to the death,” Gracie wrote on an Instagram story post. “Understand the situation and willing to limit myself, even that being said I threw no punches because of bad advice and tried to please the jiu-jitsu community two days before my fight. First fight in my life I didn’t throw a punch, going back to my old ways.”

Gracie landed 32 of 57 significant strikes according to UFC Stats, absorbing 80 of Jourdain’s 168 attempted significant strikes across three rounds.

Gracie dropped to 1-2 in the UFC and 5-2 overall in his MMA career with his second straight defeat. The ADCC gold medalist scored five submission finishes in his first five MMA contests, including three rear-naked chokes in a row against Hideo Tokoro, Tatsuya Kawajiri and Alex Caceres from 2016 to 2019.