Derek Moneyberg recently shared some screenshots of a series of private messages between him and elite competitor Craig Jones, where Jones offers to take a dive in a potential match against him. The match never came to fruition of course, but the screenshots show that Jones attempted to book it as the main event superfight for CJI 2. It would have been one of the craziest matchups in BJJ history and undoubtedly would have drawn a lot of attention, but it’s clear from Moneyberg’s responses that it was never really a possibility. He turned down the offer immediately, citing a conflicting trip to Europe as the reason why.
Jones then goes on to say ‘I keep thinking we have a match and you beat me… funniest sh*t ever’ and when Moneyberg argues that it would be hard for him to beat Jones, that’s when Jones offers to ‘just throw it’ instead. It would be presumably have been pretty obvious to everyone watching it unfold that Jones was allowing Moneyberg to win however, as Jones is legitimately one of the best competitors in the world. As with a lot of his promotional work around the Craig Jones Invitational though, he must have the comedy value made it worth doing.
The offer only came about because Jones’ original opponent, Gable Steveson, pulled out of the event just days before it took place. This left Jones and the CJI team scrambling to find a replacement opponent and when they couldn’t convince Moneyberg to take part, they ultimately turned to MMA legend Chael Sonnen instead. What’s interesting about the messages between Jones and Moneyberg is that this isn’t the first time that the idea of match-fixing has been floated around CJI 2. Steveson actually already accused Jones of asking him to take a dive in the match they originally had scheduled, before he withdrew.
Derek Moneyberg shared the screenshots of his messages with Craig Jones in a recent post to his official Instagram account:
