This article is part of our Craig Jones Invitational 2024 coverage. To get live results, play by play, and commentary, we’ll have a live updates article running all weekend.
Joao Gabriel Rocha will now be joining the stacked lineup at the Craig Jones Invitational on August 15th and 16th, 2024. He is the latest elite grappler to join the tournament and given that he has generally competed at either super-heavyweight or ultra-heavyweight divisions, he is clearly competing at over 80kg. Although the bracket for that division is far from finished, the athletes who have been confirmed so far will make this one of the toughest tournaments ever. It shouldn’t come as much of a surprise either, it was obvious that CJI was going to attract some of the best competitors in the world when Jones announced that there was going to be a million dollar prize for the winner.
Rocha actually stands a good chance of coming away with that incredible prize too, even though he will have to beat some serious opposition along the way. Rocha was at one point in time considered one of the top prospects in the sport, particularly when he won the IBJJF World Championship at both his weight and in the absolute as a brown belt. Sadly his plans were derailed shortly after he was promoted to black belt, as he was diagnosed with cancer and had to take a lot of time away from Jiu-Jitsu in order to focus on winning that battle instead.
He had already won silver medals at ADCC and at the IBJJF World Championship as a black belt by this point and 5 years, was eventually cured. He returned to competition while he was still overcoming his diagnosis and although his appearances in competition have not been as frequent as some of his peers, he has still stood on the podium of the IBJJF World Championship several times over and won the IBJJF Pan Championship. Not only is Joao Gabriel Rocha more than capable of winning the Craig Jones Invitational, he also has one of the most inspiring stories coming into it.
The Craig Jones Invitational announced the news that Joao Gabriel Rocha would be competing in a post to their official Instagram account:
