Chris Wojcik is one of the top BJJ competitors in the world and he’s one of the few that have also publicly revealed that they made a choice between CJI 2 and the brand new UFC BJJ show. Given that there will be at least 16 grapplers who could have made either the lightweight or welterweight limit in the CJI 2 roster, Wojcik is surely not the only person who had to make this choice. Those negotiations were obviously happening quietly over the last few months, so it’s interesting to hear an elite competitor share their perspective on how it all unfolded behind the scenes.
Wojcik was able to paint a picture of a pretty poorly-coordinated effort when it comes to the first season of UFC BJJ: Road to the Title:
“I just felt like the UFC was kind of being difficult to work with. Like they were not communicating the details of the show very well… I pulled out like a week before I was supposed to leave and I still hadn’t seen a contract. They were like ‘oh yeah you’re leaving on this date’ but they didn’t say ‘here’s your flight’ or ‘this is a contract you got to sign.’ So I was like kind of annoyed already.”
This seems to be a common theme emerging from the show, as Craig Jones revealed that he also turned down the coaching role and left the show looking for a second man to lead it. They obviously ended up settling on both coaches and the 16 cast-members, so clearly some athletes felt like the show was worth signing up for. In fact, while Chris Wojcik had good reasons for choosing CJI 2, William Tackett revealed why both he and his brother Andrew chose UFC BJJ instead. Aside from the lack of communication, Wojcik also thought that the contractual and financial side of the deal didn’t work for him:
“The exclusive contract thing was… I mean I just felt like it was not smart for me to sign an exclusive contract… I mean I am I guess biased to CJI because CJI is like Seth (Belisle) and Craig (Jones) are putting on CJI but also I was looking at how much money CJI is if you win and the UFC… like it’s more money to win (CJI).”
Chris Wojcik revealed the reason why he chose to enter CJI 2 instead of UFC BJJ in a recent episode of the Simple Man Podcast on their official YouTube channel:
