The rivalry appears to be over for now, as Craig Jones has now confirmed that the Craig Jones Invitational (CJI) will not be going head-to-head with ADCC again. It was one of the biggest storylines of 2024, as the his brand new promotion was built to take on the most prestigious no gi grappling tournament in the world. The inaugural CJI was staged on the very same weekend as ADCC 2024 and elite grapplers had to choose which event they were going to compete at. That wasn’t going to be an issue for the CJI 2 lineup though, as ADCC only takes place once every two years.
The next time the promotion’s might have clashed would be next year, when ADCC 2026 comes around and CJI are looking at having their third event. When Jones took part in an interview with Ariel Helwani recently, he was asked about his current relationship with ADCC and surprisingly he was pretty positive about it:
“Time heals most wounds, you know? But also, I mean it was like I was just trying to prove a point with that first event that there was like, in a way, a better way to do it. But Mo (Jassim) was kinda like restrained by what ADCC… You know like you have that formula for 30 years or whatever, obviously we had a lot of differences about how we’d do it but really at the end of the day I feel like we won a little too much and I don’t want ADCC to disappear.”
That’s when Jones revealed that there would be no CJI 3 vs ADCC 2026 weekend-long battle and instead, he was planning for the best in the world to be able to do both events:
“That’s like the legacy event of our sport. It can like, we can coexist together. Athletes can participate in both, I wouldn’t want to rob the athletes of the ability to be able to do both.”
The full interview with Craig Jones where he reveals that CJI won’t go head-to-head with ADCC again was uploaded to the official YouTube channel of the Ariel Helwani Show:
