One if the biggest BJJ news stories of the year was that Craig Jones was leaving B-Team Jiu-Jitsu and although he was somewhat vague initially, he has since explained his reasons for doing so. Jones isn’t just leaving the team either, he will actually be leaving the sport itself behind and enjoying his retirement instead. As one of the four founding members of B-Team Jiu-Jitsu, he was one of the biggest figures in the sport. His former teammates will continue on without him but in a slightly different fashion, as they’ll be rebranding and turning into an MMA gym as well.
It’s a huge change for everyone involved and there will clearly be some impact on the sport itself, as Jones and the rest of the team are all major names in the BJJ world. Jones says he never actually planned on creating the team originally though:
”In terms of the B-Team, I never really wanted to open that to begin with. It just ended up in a scenario where I felt like I needed… There was bad blood in the team, I felt like I needed to sort’ve figurehead opening that gym, but my intention was never to build this B-Team empire or whatever. It was kind’ve to help those boys kickstart an out for them.”
The bad blood he’s referring to is of course the breakup of the Danaher Death Squad, but that happened over four years ago now. A lot has changed since then and one of the biggest things is that Jones has created the Craig Jones Invitational, which has taken him out of Austin almost all year round. That was a factor in Jones’ decision to leave the team, as was how much the rest of the team has developed:
”So really now it’s really just me, having not been around for so long, just passing the torch on to them. But I think it was integral that like the B-Team brand ends because I think like my insane marketing and stuff like that sort of puts me at the forefront of a crew of guys who are more than capable of running the gym and doing the marketing aspect themselves.”
Craig Jones also shared another recent development that helped convince him that leaving B-Team Jiu-Jitsu behind was the right thing to do now:
“I think just because I’m so focused on marketing and promoting that it like overshadows some of those individual identities and their sort of accomplishments in the sport. So really it was just the perfect time. It was like well, New Wave’s ending, New Wave’s becoming Kingsway and it was kind of like I’m never around; it’s probably time for these boys to make this transition.”
Even though he’s been running an academy for years now, Jones hasn’t grown fond of doing it either:
“Running a gym sucks, you know? I guess it’s kind of all the worst parts of being a promoter as well. It’s like you’re just managing relationships, and you’re having to enforce things. It’s like people treat the gym like it’s their personal home and stuff like that, and then obviously there’s a lot of dramas that just naturally unfold at any gym and I really don’t want to be the one from afar to have to manage those things. I feel like it should be the boots on the ground there that are like navigating those situations.”
The full interview with Craig Jones where he explains his reasons for leaving B-Team Jiu-Jitsu was uploaded to the official YouTube channel of FloGrappling:
