Mason Jones is quietly 3-0 in his second UFC run
Mason Jones faces MarQuel Mederos at UFC Sacramento riding three straight wins since his UFC return, five years after his first run ended at 2-2 with a no contest.
Nobody is talking about Mason Jones, which is strange, because the Welshman has not lost a fight in four years.
Jones (18-2, 1 NC) meets MarQuel Mederos on the main card of UFC Fight Night: Hernandez vs Rodrigues this Saturday in Sacramento, and he arrives on the kind of run that usually gets a lightweight noticed: a clean decision over Jeremy Stephens in Des Moines, a TKO of Bolaji Oki in Paris last September, and a decision over Axel Sola at the O2 in London in March. Three fights, three wins, under a year.
The first UFC run is why the second one reads like redemption. Jones arrived in January 2021 at 10-0, fresh off a Cage Warriors stretch where seven of those ten wins were finishes. The UFC chapter that followed was pure bad-luck fiction: a debut decision loss to Mike Davis, a no contest against Alan Patrick in June 2021 (and when the rebooking fell through that October, a short-notice decision win over David Onama on the same card instead), then a decision loss to Ludovit Klein in July 2022. Two, two and one, and gone.
What he did next is the part I respect. Back at Cage Warriors, Jones ran off four straight between 2023 and 2024, stopping Alexandre Ribeiro, Yann Liasse and Bryce Logan inside the distance and taking a decision from Michael Pagani. By the time the UFC called again in May 2025, he had rebuilt himself into exactly what he was before: a pressure machine that throws 5.98 significant strikes a minute (a top-of-the-division workrate) and mixes in 3.48 takedowns per 15.
The Stephens fight made it official, the Oki finish made it loud, and the Sola fight made it a streak. "The Dragon" is 31, unbeaten since 2022, and 7-0 across both promotions in that span.
Mederos will have something to say about the quiet part. The 29-year-old is 11-1-1 and has never lost in the UFC: decisions over Landon Quinones, Austin Hubbard and Mark Choinski, then a majority draw with Chris Padilla in April that put the first blemish on his record since 2021. In a lovely bit of matchmaking trivia, Padilla is on the same Sacramento card, facing Nasrat Haqparast on the prelims. Beat Jones and Mederos inherits the exact "why is nobody talking about him" energy this article is spending on the Welshman.
Jones vs Mederos sits fourth on the main card at Golden 1 Center on Saturday, August 22, underneath the Anthony Hernandez vs Gregory Rodrigues headliner. Broadcast options for your country are on the how to watch page.