Kron Gracie explains UFC 288 return after almost 4-year hiatus: 'I came back to get this fight sh*t poppin' again'

MORRISTOWN, N.J. – After nearly four years away from the public eye, Kron Gracie needed approximately two minutes to answer 10 questions Wednesday at UFC 288 media day.

Soft-spoken and somewhat introverted, Gracie (5-1 MMA, 1-1 UFC) was polite despite his brevity. Perhaps he’s just waiting for Saturday at Prudential Center to do the talking.

“I came back to get this fight sh*t poppin’ again,” Gracie told MMA Junkie. “… I feel like they stopped the world, and I had certain moves in my life and now I’m here.”

Gracie, 34, moved to Montana during the COVID-19 pandemic and opened a gym. When he steps into the cage Saturday against Charles Jourdain (13-6-1 MMA, 4-5-1 UFC), it’ll be his first MMA competition since a unanimous decision loss to Cub Swanson in October 2019 that earned Fight of the Night honors.

“I couldn’t really fight in that situation (during COVID),” Gracie said. “I had to move and then move my gym and get everything kind of organized and ready to fight. It’s already hard enough to fight when I had everything the way I wanted it. I wasn’t going to start training for a fight if I didn’t have the right things in the right places.”

It’s unclear how his in-cage skills have changed over the past three-plus years. Regardless, Gracie wasn’t wasting his time away.

“Now I know how to chop wood and shovel snow a lot better,” Gracie said.

For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC 288.