First Things First

Professional grappling's biggest troll became its latest power broker last week. Craig Jones has officially launched his own professional grappling event. They have a stage, date, and competitors to compete for a million dollars.

Will this be a force for good? Or just another prank gone off the rails?

Craig Jones, Influential

Jones has been professional grappling's antihero for the better part of the last decade. The goofy Australian got famous for cracking jokes in between second-place finishes at the Abu Dhabi Combat Club (ADCC) World Championships. Then he doubled down on his humor, started his misfit gym, The B-Team, and monetized his jokes through clever merchandise and a podcast.

As the professional athlete was transitioning into the natural second career of coach, influencer, and internet personality, he answered the question everyone was dying to know; was he going to compete at the ADCC World Championships one more time? Candidly, Jones said there was no reason to do ADCC because "I make more money selling dick pills".

With one throwaway comment Jones let the audience peek behind the curtain and see what the life of a professional combat sports athlete is actually like. Disappointing.

You spend decades breaking your body to perfect your craft for the tiniest shot at making real money over a handful of events. Then you realize no matter how much people value your skills and the spectacle you create, you won't feel fairly compensated. Attention is earned and value is created, but it hardly flows back to the athletes.

In true Jones fashion several months ago, he joked that the funniest way to shake up the existing power structures would be to start his own event.

It’s A Conflict, Not A Competition

For months, Jones teased details about what an event could look like. He posted cryptic messages saying it could be in Vegas over the same weekend as the ADCC World Championships in a different more affordable venue.

The event sounded like a sideshow attraction until he announced that all competitors would make $10,001 just for showing up to the Craig Jones Invitational (CJI). The winners of the two divisions? They’d each get the largest purse ever in the sport; $1,000,000.

10,001 sounds like a random number. It's not. That guaranteed money puts Craig Jones's event one dollar higher than the top prize of the ADCC World Championships.

The combination of these two numbers meant that for many athletes there was no logical reason to do the ADCC World Championships. Young and ultra-exciting competitors Andrew & William Tackett announced that they were giving up their lifelong dream of winning an ADCC World Title to take a shot at this new Craig Jones invitational, "This was a tough decision for me, especially since I felt I had a great chance to win ADCC this year. But 1,000,000 is not only life-changing for me, but my whole family."

Since the Tackett's announcement, defending -60kg ADCC Champion Ffion Davies announced she’ll be joining them, "Hi guys! I'm so happy to announce I'll be fighting on @cjiofficial 🤍 I'm proud to support the event especially as we will be giving a donation in aid of the people in Gaza affected by the ongoing tragedy. This means I will not be participating at ADCC."

Joining Davies and the Tacketts are ADCC competitors Nicky Ryan, Jozef Chen, and Nick Rodriguez. They also managed to get former UFC middleweight champion Luke Rockhold to join in on the fun.

Fans were openly wondering if anyone would elect to switch to this new potential flash in the pan. Anyone that has been paid to compete in any type of martial art knew it was only a matter of time.

This Is The Point Of Prizefighting

For decades, ADCC was one of the top grappling events in the world for one reason, prize money. When ADCC was first created, most grapplers were busy fighting MMA to make real money.

Over time, ADCC’s prize attracted better competitors, the title became prestigious, and even people that didn't win could build a brand that they could further monetize. See, Jones, and his ability to sell seminars, merchandise, and dick pills without an ADCC title.

The event largely stagnated for years until current ADCC organizer Mo Jassim took it over. His goal has been to grow the event and further professionalize jiu-jitsu. The stage got bigger, the spectacle exploded, and every fan was happy to enjoy it. But the prize money has yet to follow.

A small but vocal minority of athletes and hardcore fans started to ask one big question. When will money flow to the athletes? This is where the story gets a little complicated.

To the best of our knowledge, Jassim does not get paid to organize ADCC, nor does ADCC make a profit. It's effectively a passion project backed by the U.A.E.. Those facts make it hard to say that the athletes should be making more money.

The conversation of athlete compensation gets even more polarizing when we look at the structures that facilitate ADCC.

Jones and other athletes have critiqued streaming platform FloGrappling, ADCC’s streaming partner, to say that they profit from athletes’ likeness and labor while the competitors risking life and limb don’t see that money come back to them. Jones has also questioned Jassim's motivations with ADCC. What’s the point of building a bigger stage if the athletes aren't making more money?

In 2019, Jassim claimed ADCC barely broke even. At the next event in 2022, the stage was bigger, production was unlike anything in grappling, but the athletes' purses had not changed.

Jassim is on record agreeing that purses need to rise. But this year's ADCC rented the T-Mobile Arena, a stage larger than any in the past, to make the biggest spectacle in grappling. Jones and many grapplers pointed out that this adds costs without necessarily improving revenue, further stagnating profit and potentially delaying athletes' purses from rising.

I'm not going to pretend to have access to ADCC's P&L's. I can't comment on what impact the T-Mobile Arena will have on ADCC positively or negatively. What I can say is, Jassim is betting that a bigger stage will attract bigger sponsors, more eyes, higher ticket sales, and, consequently, this will turn into money for the athletes. Build the prestige and the pay will follow.

Jones is betting that if you reduce costs to put more money in athletes' pockets, more high-quality competitors will be attracted to the event. They will bring their fans, which can increase ticket and sponsorship dollars. Repeat this over several years and you have an active growth flywheel.

For what it’s worth, Jones is also putting the event on Youtube for free. This could increase viewership to unlock additional ad dollars.

Neither strategy is necessarily incorrect. The problem is prestige doesn't pay the bills today.

Brighter Or Fragmented Future?

Any time the discussion of fighter pay comes up I'm reminded of boxer Gervonta Davis's infamous press conference quip against Ryan Garcia.

Davis was flashing cash and Garcia was arguing that it's not really about the money. Without missing a beat Davis retorted, "It's prizefighting, stupid."

Professional fighters compete for money. Everything else is a secondary benefit.

Boxing is often called the sweet science. Sometimes the "poor boy's game". It's a sport where impoverished kids can amass untold wealth. Often the ones that do were hopeless, or at least hungry, until they found it.

Grappling is often compared to chess. I agree, and not for the alleged technical similarities, but for the nature of the practice, play, and rewards.

People spend years toiling over miniature movements, and for what? Skilled practitioners' backs hunch to comfort the crouch of their stance while casual observers hardly understand what's happening, much less care enough to pay to watch. The money doesn’t come, and these people ruin their lives for nothing but the thrill and the challenge and the fun of a silly game.

To that respect, I'm elated to learn that there is more money coming into the sport I love. The problem is, we don't know how long CJI will be around.

What’s The Point Of The Event?

Craig Jones has created more questions than answers. How serious is he taking this? Who else is involved? How can we support that which is putting more money in athletes' pockets so it's around longer to help additional athletes?

If CJI puts on one event it will not put pressure on ADCC, or any other promoter, to raise purses and continue to attract athletes. It will only make a handful of people jump at a million dollars, burn bridges in the community, and further reduce events' ability to get everyone together and compete against one another. This spreads fan attention across different events, making them harder to sell ad space against.

For what its worth, Jones has been actively promoting the event on Reddit. He even claims they’re here to stay

At the beginning of this year I wrote an article on Why You Shouldn’t Compete. That piece closed with a quote from Jigoro Kano which is all too relevant today

I don’t know how long CJI will be around for. I’m just happy that Jones managed to catch lighting in a bottle and is trying to do some good with it.

Citations & Further Viewing

Share & Support Open Note Grappling