Craig Jones Invitational: Confirmed Athletes & More

The Craig Jones Invitational, or CJI for short, is a Jiu Jitsu tournament scheduled for August 16th and 17th in Las Vegas, Nevada. This event is a competitor to the prestigious ADCC (Abu Dabhi Combat Combat Club) tournament, and is intentionally being held on the same weekend and in the same city. CJI will be taking place at UNLV's Thomas & Mack Center, while ADCC takes place at the T-Mobile Arena.

Craig Jones launched the CJI as a way to push back at ADCC for failing to increase athlete pay in the 20+ years since their tournament first started. In the most recent ADCC event, over 10,000 tickets were sold and production value was off the charts (many athletes would say, needlessly) with Bruce Buffer, drummers, a fire show, and other antics not directly related to the competition.

CJI vs ADCC: Athlete Pay

ADCC pays the following places:

Men's Divisions 1st place: $10,000
Men's Divisions 2nd place: $5,000
Men's Divisions 3rd place: $3,000
Men's Divisions 4th place: $1,000
Women's Divisions 1st place: $6,000
Women's Divisions 2nd place: $3,000
Women's Divisions 3rd place: $2,000
Women's Divisions 4th place: $1,000
Superfight Winner: $40,000
Superfight Loser: $10,000

along with a couple of small (less than a few thousand dollars each) bonuses for things like the best takedown. Overall the prize pool is generally a little under $250,000.

CJI pays the following places:

All tournament competitors: $10,001
Men's Division winners: $1,000,000

So it's no surprise that many athletes are jumping ship from ADCC to compete in Craig Jones' new event.

Who's Behind CJI?

Craig Jones is obviously the face of the Craig Jones invitational, but who's putting up the money?

That's something Craig has been very cagey about. He brought $1,000,000 in cash onto the Joe Rogan show to prove he is serious, but he's not revealing who is ponying up the money for the event. He will only say that he and is business partner Seth Belisle (B-Team co-owner) are organizing the tournament.

Confirmed CJI Competitors

Here's a list of competitors who are confirmed to participate in the Craig Jones Invitational (last updated Sunday June 30th, 2024).

Under 80kg:

Over 80kg:

Superfights:

Some of these are absolutely massive names, who gave up their ADCC spots to participate in CJI. We'll continue to update this list as athletes are confirmed for this event.

How To Buy Tickets for CJI

Tickets are now on sale for the event, you can pick them up on the UNLV Tickets website.

The "Gordon Ryan's Miata" Giveaway

A few years ago, Gordon Ryan (who will be competing at ADCC and not CJI) did a big splashy giveaway of his Mazda Miata. It was kind of a shitshow and the giveaway took forever, but he did eventually give the car away.

Well, Craig Jones tracked down the new owner of the Miata and bought it... to do his own "Gordony Ryan's Miata" giveaway. The level of trolling here is off the charts. Check out the video announcement here.

CJI Rules and Format

The Craig Jones Invitiational ruleset is a unique one (and not fully announced yet). Matches will take place in a Karate Combat style "pit" with raised walls.

The idea behind this is that it will allow for less referee intervention, keep athletes safe, and punish athletes for backing away instead of creating action.

Unlike traditional Jiu Jitsu match scoring, CJI will be using a scoring system similar to MMA with multiple rounds where the winner receives a 10-9 score (or potentially a 10-8 score in the case of a particularly dominant round). Athletes are divided into two divisions based on weight - over 80kg and under 80kg - with no subdivisions based on belt rank.

We'll update here when the full ruleset is released.