The Craig Jones Invitational 2025 (CJI 2) will take place on August 30th and 31st, 2025, and we’ll be continually updating this teams and competitor list for the event. The inaugural CJI was a huge success and became one of the biggest events in Jiu-Jitsu history, watched by millions of people around the world. Creating something of that magnitude from scratch was a huge challenge in itself, but the challenge now is to do something completely new. CJI 2 will be a Quintet-style tournament featuring 8 teams of 5 grapplers all battling it out for the million-dollar prize, which will be split among the winning team.
Unlike Quintet where teams have a total weight-limit, the teams will have to field a competitor in each of the five traditional ADCC weight classes of -66kg, -77kg, -88kg, -99kg, and +99kg. Five of the teams competing will be representing a specific affiliation in Jiu-Jitsu, while the remaining three teams are all ‘Misfits’ teams representing Australasia, Europe, and The Americas. This gives competitors from smaller affiliations the opportunity to receive an invite to CJI 2, and each team also has a single ‘wildcard’ invite too. This allows them to draft in one competitor from another team or location in order to fill out their roster of five elite grapplers.
Craig Jones Invitational 2025 (CJI 2) Teams And Competitor List
New Wave Jiu-Jitsu
Coach: John Danaher
-66kg: Dorian Olivarez
-77kg: Internal trials winner
-88kg: Giancarlo Bodoni
-99kg: Luke Griffith
+99kg: Dan Manasoiu
B-Team Jiu-Jitsu
Coach: Dima Murovanni
-66kg: Ethan Crelinsten
-77kg: Jozef Chen
-88kg: Chris Wojcik
-99kg: ???
+99kg: ???
10th Planet
Coach: Eddie Bravo
-66kg: Geo Martinez
-77kg: Alan Sanchez
-88kg: PJ Barch
-99kg: Ryan Aitken
+99kg: Kyle Boehm
Team Misfits Australasia
Coach: Lachlan Giles
-66kg: Fabricio Andrey
-77kg: Levi Jones-Leary
-88kg: Lucas Kanard
-99kg: Declan Moody
+99kg: Belal Etiabari
Team Misfits Europe
Coach: Faris Ben-Lamkadem
-66kg: Owen Jones
-77kg: External trials winner
-88kg: External trials winner
-99kg: ???
+99kg: External trials winner
Team Misfits Americas
Coach: Greg Souders
-66kg: Deandre Corbe
-77kg: ???
-88kg: ???
-99kg: ???
+99kg: ???
Team TBA
Coach: ???
-66kg: ???
-77kg: ???
-88kg: ???
-99kg: ???
+99kg: ???
Team TBA
Coach: ???
-66kg: ???
-77kg: ???
-88kg: ???
-99kg: ???
+99kg: ???
Superfights
The inaugural Craig Jones Invitational featured two incredible superfights and it seems likely that CJI 2 will feature at least that many in 2025, so we’ll be adding them to this competitor list as and when they’re officially announced. Jones announced himself as the first superfight competitor, teasing that he would be competing in the ‘biggest grappling match in history.’ Other names have been floated around since then and even Demetrious Johnson has been discussed as a potential competitor, although he shut down the idea quickly. One thing is for certain, Jones will be pulling out all the stops to make the CJI 2 superfights a huge part of the event.
There’s no news yet on where CJI 2 will be broadcast, but the inaugural event was available to watch live on the official B-Team Jiu-Jitsu YouTube channel.
