Craig Jones has just answered one of the main concerns that professional grappling fans have for his second event, as the Craig Jones Invitational 2025 (CJI 2) will be broadcast for free on YouTube. It’s set to be the biggest event of the year and one of the biggest in the history of the sport, so fans around the world will be happy to find out that they won’t have to pay to watch it. The inaugural Craig Jones Invitational was free to watch last year and it reached millions of people as a result, but recent promotional efforts made it look as though this might not be the case again.
FloGrappling released footage of Craig Jones being escorted off their premises by security and although some fans believed their eyes, others were left questioning whether this was the start of an announcement that CJI 2 would be kept behind their paywall. The broadcaster confirmed that the footage was fake and they also explained that there was a pending announcement of a working relationship with Jones. It didn’t take long at all for Jones to confirm that he was going to be working with FloGrappling, but he laid the fans’ fears to rest immediately by confirming that CJI 2 would remain free regardless:
”In doing this partnership I really have to be quite apologetic… I know a lot of people out there are like ‘oh does that mean CJI is gonna be on Flo?’ A lot of cheap b***ards complaining about 3 million dollars wasted, another 2 to 3 million dollars wasted on this event. They’re like ’Oh no Craig, is it gonna be on FloGrappling now you’re doing this work with FloGrappling?’ Well I do have to apologise to absolutely f***ing noone, because it’s still gonna be free on YouTube and I’m gonna be working with FloGrappling. That shows how cool these motherf***ers are. What a massive liability it is for me to sign a contract with them.”
Craig Jones confirmed that CJI 2 would still be free to watch in a recent episode of the ‘On Borrowed Time’ podcast that was uploaded to the official YouTube channel of B-Team Jiu-Jitsu:
