Gordon Ryan had just taken the next step in his never-ending war with Craig Jones, as he took aim at both him and CJI itself after Gable Steveson pulled out of his superfight with Jones at the event. He’s had a lot to say about Jones in the past and he’s been openly critical of his efforts as a promoter ever since the inaugural CJI last year. It wasn’t much of a surprise that Ryan was against CJI to begin with though, as he has been the posterboy for ADCC for quite some time and the rivalry between CJI and ADCC last year threatened to outshine his performance at the latter.
Jones has of course gone on record to say that the rivalry between them is over but Ryan still appears to have issues with the promotion, likely stemming from his personal issues with Jones. The two men were teammates and key training partners once upon a time, but that relationship ended pretty bitterly when the Danaher Death Squad broke up. They went their separate ways and founded two different teams, with the rivalry even extending down to them as well. It’s ebbed and flowed at various points over the last few years since then but when Jones recently announced his retirement from the sport, it seemed like it might finally fully die down.
Neither Craig Jones nor Gordon Ryan have competed in almost a year, with Jones last appearance being at the first CJI and Ryan’s being in his pair of ADCC 2024 superfights that same weekend. Even with both men seemingly stepping away from the sport, at least for the time being, Ryan isn’t going to let the bad blood go. With the news that Gable Steveson had pulled out of his superfight with Jones, Ryan took the opportunity to poke fun at Jones for losing out on the match. Interestingly though, Ryan also heavily implied that Steveson chose to pull out purely to make his MMA debut two weeks later rather than the because he suffered an injury in training as was originally announced.
Gordon Ryan shared his thoughts on CJI 2 and Craig Jones after Gable Steveson pulled out of the superfight against him in a recent post to his official Instagram account, and Jones shared his reply: