At each stop in his athletic career — from multi-sport stardom at Greensburg Salem to cementing his legacy as West Virginia University’s greatest wrestler ever — Greg Jones always reached the pinnacle of his sport.

Now, after making the transition from the wrestling world to “the fight game,” this former Mountaineer is once again ascending to his sport’s proverbial mountaintop. And although he has found a new home in South Florida as the head wrestling coach for Kill Cliff FC — a highly regarded mixed martial arts training center formerly known as Sanford MMA — the Slickville native hasn’t forgotten his roots.

“To be honest, Vegas is probably my least favorite city on earth,” Jones said Friday during a poolside phone call at the Red Rock Casino in Las Vegas on the eve of UFC 276. “It’s just another fight week.”

Jones may prefer the glint of a dimly lit wrestling room in the early morning hours to the bright lights of a UFC main event, but he has never shied away from the spotlight.

A former PIAA champion and three-time top-three finisher at Greensburg Salem, Jones put together one of the greatest collegiate wrestling careers of all time while at West Virginia from 2001-05. Jones finished his career with a record of 126-4 and won three national titles, along with the Outstanding Wrestler award at the 2005 NCAA championships. He went undefeated as both a junior and senior and ended his career on a 51-match winning streak.

Many top wrestlers become successful college head coaches after graduating, and Jones seemed to be on a similar track. Then, after spending nine years as an assistant coach with the Mountaineers, Jones decided to try his hand at coaching MMA.

His introduction to the sport came from none other than former collegiate wrestling rival Rashad Evans, a former UFC light heavyweight champion who rose to fame as the season two winner of “The Ultimate Fighter.” Evans asked Jones to help him train for a title bout vs. Jon Jones in 2012, and a few years later, Evans brought him in as the full-time wrestling coach for the Blackzilians, one of the top fight teams in MMA at the time.

After the Blackzilians folded in 2017, Jones teamed up with renowned kickboxing trainer Henri Hooft to create a new fight team. With the help of longtime MMA manager Dave Martin, they eventually formed Sanford MMA — and it didn’t take long for the gym to emerge as one of the most attractive training centers in the world for top-tier fighters.

“I was in a really good position at West Virginia. That’s home,” Jones said. “I’m not necessarily a Florida guy, you know what I mean? I could have very well retired as a coach at West Virginia, but life just kind of happens, and I’m very grateful with how things shook out and where I sit right now.”

As of last Friday, Sanford MMA officially completed its rebrand to Kill Cliff FC. The energy drink and CBD company bought out the rights to the team, which is based in Boca Raton, Fla., although Sanford Health will remain involved as a co-sponsor.

Kill Cliff’s star-studded roster includes top UFC contenders Michael Chandler, Gilbert Burns and Vicente Luque and former UFC champion Robbie Lawler, who fought on the main card of Saturday’s UFC 276 pay-per-view. Current UFC welterweight champion and top-ranked pound-for-pound fighter Kamaru Usman also trains often at the state-of-the-art facility.

No matter the name, the team is here to stay — and Jones’ invaluable instruction is a big reason why.

“One of the more common questions I get is, ‘Don’t you miss coaching?’ No. I do more coaching now than I’ve ever done,” Jones said. “It’s just been great for me personally, too, just jumping into a new field. It’s really helped me start to understand my strengths and weaknesses and what I’m good at.

“Will I coach college wrestling again? Maybe. But I don’t think that desire to be head coach is there. … I can be that guy that’s out front, leading the charge. But I don’t think that’s where I’m strongest.”

While Jones believes there is no true way to define the “best” at anything — be it a wrestler, fighter, coach, gym, etc. — he said Kill Cliff provides a relaxed and free-flowing yet high-level training environment that fighters won’t find anywhere else.

With wall-to-wall matting inside the sprawling blue-and-white facility and a makeshift octagon for sparring, fighters can train in wrestling, jiu-jitsu, boxing, kickboxing and any other aspect of MMA — all in the same room and all alongside some of the best coaches and training partners the sport has to offer.

“You have these fantasy matchups, who’s your top five — I don’t know how you measure that. But I do believe to my core that we do have one of the most unique training environments anywhere on Earth,” Jones said. “With the coaching staff, the expertise, the resources, the things we’re able to do with our fighters — we’re very sound from a business standpoint. I don’t think there is a better arrangement out there in MMA.”

Back in the early 2000s, when Jones was putting the finishing touches on his spectacular wrestling career, the UFC was still in its relatively early stages and had yet to develop much mainstream popularity. There were some top-level wrestlers who had ventured into MMA and found success at the highest level, but the opportunities were few and far between, and it didn’t seem like a viable career for most, financially or otherwise.

“If you boil it down — the sport has done what it’s doing and taken off like it’s taking off, but it’s still the fight game,” Jones said.

As a wrestler, Jones had a relentless style and tremendous strength, quickness, balance and athleticism — traits that would have served him well if he had gone into fighting. But he doesn’t have any regrets about going right into coaching after graduating from West Virginia in 2005.

After all, that path led him to where he is now — at the top of the MMA world, and just getting started.

“There is this idea in mixed martial arts that there is a term called, ‘MMA wrestling,’” Jones said. “I’ve been in the sport of MMA for probably 10 years now, and I still don’t know how you define ‘MMA wrestling.’

“In my mind, wrestling is still wrestling.”

Steve Rotstein: srotstein@post-gazette.com and Twitter @SteveRotstein.

First Published: July 6, 2022, 7:15 p.m.