The latest news on the selection process for the Craig Jones Invitational (CJI) 2 has now emerged, as the details of the Team Misfits Europe trials have been released. With just a few months left before it takes place, the lineup for CJI 2 seems to be getting updated every few days. The three separate Misfits teams were always going to be the toughest to predict given that there’s hundreds of potential entrants vying for each of the five spaces available. The coach leading the European team and taking charge of the selection process was announced as Faris Ben-Lamkadem, and it seems like he’s chosen to follow the example set by one of his opposing coaches.
Lachlan Giles announced a stacked trials tournament for two of the places on Team Misfits Australasia, and Ben-Lamkadem is doing something similar for three of the spaces on the European team. Instead of the huge bracket that Giles is working with, Ben-Lamkadem has set up three different brackets for each available weight class. Four men will be competing in each division at under 77kg, under 88kg, and over 99kg; setting up a straight-forward single-elimination tournament where each division’s winner secures their spot on the team. That means that only the under 66kg and under 99kg positions are left available, with both of these being filled through other methods.
Craig Jones actually already confirmed Owen Jones and Mateusz Szczecinski as competitors for Team Misfits Europe, but that announcement looks a little in doubt after the details of the trials have been released. Jones is an under 66kg competitor so it seems as though he’s taking that available position, but Szczecinski is an under 77kg competitor usually. With that position up for grabs in the Team Misfits Europe Trials and under 99kg the only available spot on the team, it seems unlikely that Szczecinski will be competing at CJI 2 unless he’s been drafted as a wildcard for another team or has been entered in the trials instead.
The twelve men competing for three spaces on the Team Misfits Europe roster will all hit the mats on May 24th, 2025 at the Los Banditos gym in London, England. There’s no news on who those competitors will be, but it will undoubtedly attract some of the best grapplers from all around the continent. The winner will get the opportunity to compete at the most prestigious no gi grappling tournament of the year, giving them the chance to massively raise their profile in the sport. Then if the team do manage to emerge victorious, each team member will receive the biggest payout of their career as their one-fifth share of the million dollar grand prize.
Faris Ben-Lamkadem announced the full details of the Team Misfits Europe Trials for CJI 2 in a recent post to his official Instagram account:
