“He was shot and tortured and burned,” Jones recalled. “I was devastated. He was the first person I loved who died. I’ll never forget the funeral. I’ll never forget the way I felt. I was happy to leave Rochester.”

The family moved to Endicott, N.Y., where his father, Arthur II, would became the pastor of his own church, Mt. Sinai, located in Binghamton.

Growing up in Pastor Jones’s home, there were no sleepovers, no cable television, no video games. There was church, school and sports. That’s how Arthur II and his 11 siblings had been raised and that’s how he and his wife would raise their children.

The three brothers flourished as high school athletes, and Arthur III and Chandler would accept scholarships to Syracuse on the way to the N.F.L.

Jones was an average football player, but like his father, he excelled as a high school wrestler and became a state champion. At Iowa Central Junior College, Jones became a national wrestling champion as a freshman.

He had planned to transfer to Iowa State but left school when his girlfriend became pregnant with their first child. With another mouth to feed, Jones found his way to an M.M.A. gym and began to train. With his background in wrestling, he found that the sport was a natural fit.

“I was the one who everyone thought might get lost,” Jones said.

While he lacked the size of his brothers, Jones’s long arms and legs and his explosive athleticism would made make him the prototype of an M.M.A. fighter.