Jon Jones Before MMA (Video Footage)

Before he was chasing down bad guys and winning world titles, Jon "Bones" Jones was working his way up the ranks like any other aspiring professional MMA fighter.

According to BloodyElbow.com, this video footage (link at bottom) was taken by Stephen Koepfer, who is the founder of the New York Combat Sambo and the American Sambo Association.

He is also one of the primary players in the legislation of MMA in the state of New York.

BloodyElbow's KJ Gould recently spoke to Koepfer about the story behind the video.

The event was the Northeastern Grappling Challenge, which took place in January 2008, and it was hosted by Team Bomb Squad, Jones' original team, in Ithaca, New York.

It was the first time the American Sambo Association put together a no gi grappling team.

The team featured Doug Fournet, who is seen grappling with Jones in the video. He is an experienced grappler that has competed in the FILA grappling world championships and the Sambo world championships.

This video is a reminder of what a rare talent Jones is. At 20 years of age, he bested a high level grappler with a wealth of experience. This was really early in his post-collegiate wrestling career at Iowa Central Community College.

Before You Were Famous: Jon Jones Video

(SportsHaze.com Original)

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