First Things First

Last week the Craig Jones Invitational announced its most shocking signing yet. Internationally ranked wrestler Jason Nolf announced he’s doing the Craig Jones invitational.

Today we’re going to take a short look at some of his interesting technical quirks and talk about why his signing matters more than almost any athlete yet.

Penn State’s Best Pinner Ever Made The Jump

Jason Nolf is an elite wrestler in the middle of his prime. After winning three NCAA gold medals in college Nolf tried his hands on the senior international wrestling circuit. Since then Nolf has won the US Open, the Zagreb Open twice, but he has narrowly missed representing the US at at the World Championships and Olympic trials after losing to Olympian and world champion Kyle Dake.

Instead of transitioning to coaching or sitting and waiting for what’s to come next, Nolf decided to announce he will be making a run at a million dollars by competing in the Craig Jones Invitational. What’s interesting to me about Nolf is how well he scrambles, pins, and plays the positional game on the mat.

Technical Takeaways

No one at CJI is going to score a takedown on Nolf. Maybe someone scrambles ahead and uses leg locks to get on top. Maybe someone locks up to throw a flying submission at him. But, barring those two outcomes, I have a hard time seeing anyone take him off his feet to score a takedown on him.

Look at how Nolf turns his opponent’s takedown attempt into a pin.

No one in CJI’s -80KG division can move that smoothly on the feet. Because of the extreme gap in stand-up skill we’re going to move past that to look at some of the more interesting moments from Nolf’s folkstyle matches.

Folkstyle wrestling is an American phenomenon. It’s what we compete in during high school and college.

You could make the argument that folkstyle is more relevant for Brazilian jiu-jitsu because of the referee’s position’s similarities to back mount in Brazilian jiu-jitsu. So that’s what I want to focus on, Nolf attacking the back and pinning positions while scrambling out of situations similar to what we see in BJJ.

The reality is, Nolf was already doing moves that look similar to what we do in Brazilian jiu-jitsu.

Here Nolf shows more acrobatic flair as he hits a Winn Dixie roll.

Maybe more relevant is how Nolf defends when people start attacking his back. Here Nolf hits a classic Peterson roll to prevent getting mat returned.

Below we can see Nolf prevent his opponent wrestling up to his back side.

This looks identical to the half guard scrambles you’ll see in Brazilian jiu-jitsu. Now let’s take a look at how Nolf defends people pulling on his feet.

We even saw Nolf correctly defend a leg lock attempt in his first submission grappling match a few weeks ago.

Above we see Nolf getting to the back, escaping the back, getting out of leg attacks, and scrambling to pinning and choking positions. All of that sounds pretty helpful for competing in a submission grappling tournament.

Let’s be a little more realistic now.

So much of Nolf’s offense is dependent on getting to his opponent’s backside because they are are trying to stand up. We have no idea how he’ll look when people just sit down. More importantly, we don’t even fully know the scoring system and how that will work for or against Nolf.

Honestly I don’t really care how far Nolf goes in CJI. I just want to see who he brings with him.

Jason Nolf’s Signing Could Signal The Start Of Real Change

CJI still looked like an elaborate flash in the pan until last week’s signing. Getting an internationally competitive wrestler to leave freestyle in the middle of their prime matters because of what it could signal for the rest of their community.

Nolf brings the eyes of additional fans and competitors with him to his new sport. Those eyes could now see this tournament, and the sport as a whole, as a viable path to make more money competing.

We can look back to pickleball’s growth for a comparable.

Before the geriatric hobby started taking over America, pickleball was relegated to retirement homes, country clubs, and backyards. Eventually, former tennis players moved into the sport to play, win tournaments, and coach. This turned into a livable salary for some of them so more tennis players followed in their footsteps.

As more tennis players tried their hand at pickleball, more courts and events popped up to meet demand. This cycle repeated until investors saw opportunities to pour money into clubs, teams, and events. Now pickleball has a pro tour and high end members’ only clubs across the country.

You can even see a similar trajectory from Crossfit.

First Crossfit was a workout. Then it became a competition. Then former gymnasts, weightlifters, and other power athletes started competing, coaching, and making some money. Then more money came in through additional participants, sponsorships, and bigger tournaments.

Does Jason Nolf going to CJI mean grappling will be getting its own fight sports country club any time soon? Probably not. But his interest in the sport is a key step in the growth flywheel submission grappling desperately needs.

To grow a sport, product, or new idea you need to continue to branch out and capture additional groups of people. If you don’t, you’re just finding new ways to get more money from the same group.

We can look at Everett Roger’s “Innovation Adoption Curve” for a deeper explanation of this idea.

Roger’s innovation adoption curve comes from his “Diffusion of Innovations” theory. It looks at how products, services, and ideas spread through a population.

The theory argues that there are five segments that you need to attract and retain:

1. Innovators. They explore innovations to find opportunities and be an agent of change.

2. Early Adopters. They are are looking to achieve a revolutionary breakthrough.

3. Early Majority. They’re looking for proven ways of doing what they already do and they want minimal disruption. They’re particularly important because they are one of the two largest groups.

4. Late Majority. They only adopt new innovations to avoid the embarrassment of being left behind. Together with the Early Majority, they make up 68% of the group.

5. Laggards: they only switch when their traditional way of doing something has failed.

The innovation-adoption curve was originally created for products, technology, and the ideas behind them. It’s not exactly a 1:1 comparison with new sport events but there is still one important takeaway.

Each section of the larger population that you’re trying to attract has different needs, needs to be communicated with differently, and, once they have adopted this new idea, they need to talk to the group they came from to bring in the rest of that group.

Now comes the hard part.

The athletes that are taking time away from their main sport in the middle of their physical prime need to be examples that submission grappling can be a viable way to make money so more athletes from their sport will follow them over. Otherwise, the Craig Jones Invitational and the hype around it will just be another short term sports spectacle.

The reality is, the Craig Jones Invitational doesn’t need to be the only game in town. It shouldn’t be. If submission grappling events can coexist then people will have more opportunities to compete, make money, and athletes can make a real living in the sport. Then more will try the sport and the growth cycle will continue.

The alternative is we keep selling new things to the same people and the sport never grows as big as many think it can.

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