Craig Jones has decided to take a stand against the current state of grappling, specifically Jiu-Jitsu.
He did this by withdrawing from the most prestigious grappling tournament, ADCC, and organizing his event in the same city, Las Vegas, at the same time. While ADCC 2024 will be held at the T-Mobile Arena, Craig’s event, CJI, will take place at the Thomas & Mack Center, where ADCC 2022 was held.
What stands out about the tournament organized by Craig Jones is that he significantly increased the prize money for fighters compared to what ADCC offers. ADCC awards $10,000 to fighters who win their category in the tournament, whereas CJI offers $10,001 just for participating. Furthermore, CJI promises category winners a prize of $1 million.
This move by Jones has not been well received by the leadership at ADCC, especially by Mo Jassim, who commented that it is not fair for Craig Jones to hold his event on the same day as ADCC.
“ADCC doesn’t treat its athletes fairly. To take a stand against the current state of grappling, I had to challenge ADCC,” Jones stated, adding, “What they are doing is ridiculous. Their fighters are competing for crumbs. It’s insane. That event isn’t even worth mentioning.”
Jones was driven to take this action due to his dissatisfaction with ADCC’s modest payouts. In a short time, he managed to raise several million dollars for his two-day CJI tournament. This was also fueled by the fact that ADCC’s prize money had not changed in years despite promises from their leadership, including Gordon Ryan after the 2022 competition.
“My goal is for this sport to be fairly compensated and to become mainstream,” Gordon Ryan wrote on Instagram in 2022. “It’s not ADCC’s job to pay more. We need bigger sponsors and a larger audience. At the next ADCC, I want the winners to earn $50-100k just for competing, and I want to earn $1 million for competing and $2 million for the weekend. This is just the beginning, and I’m happy to lead this fight for professionalism.”
The highest payout at this year’s ADCC is $40k, as stated on their official website. In contrast, Craig Jones has secured a $1 million prize for the winners of his tournament and has also sold out the entire Thomas & Mack arena.
What truly fascinates everyone is the fact that this was all planned for just three months.
“I honestly think it couldn’t have turned out better,” Jones said, continuing, “All the fights were exciting, the crowd was intense. We directly competed with an event that has been selling tickets for two years and did very well. We sold out Saturday night. I’m sure this will be the most-watched event in history,” Jones concluded.
It’s also worth noting that the CJI event was streamed for free on the B-Team YouTube channel, while ADCC charges for its streaming.
