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.
Jozef Chen has just become the latest grappler to decline his invite to ADCC 2024 in order to compete at the very first edition of the Craig Jones Invitational instead. There was a ton of anticipation surrounding Chen in his ADCC debut, as it looked as though he might be able to make a pretty big impact in one of the toughest divisions at under 77kg. He went through one of the toughest runs in ADCC Trials history in order to earn his invite to ADCC 2024, and it’s a pretty big statement for him to pass on such a hard-earned opportunity.
It’s taken years for Chen to make it to the highest level of the sport, but the prospect of winning a million dollars in the under 80kg division of the Craig Jones Invitational was clearly too big to pass up. Several other competitors have made the same choice over the last few days, and Chen isn’t even the first ADCC Trials winner to do so. Both Tackett brothers made the switch to CJI despite earning their invites in the hardest fashion and it’ll be interesting to see if any of the other Trials winners decide to follow suit in the coming weeks.
It wasn’t a total surprise to see Jozef Chen switching to the CJI either, as B-Team Jiu-Jitsu founder Craig Jones created the invitational tournament and several of his elite teammates had already made the same decision. Nicky Ryan became the first one to withdraw from ADCC 2024 and he was quickly joined by Nicky Rodriguez, making Chen the third member of the team to enter the tournament. Although that means he will have to beat at least one of his teammates in order to take home the grand prize, that amount of money will be a fantastic motivator.
Ever since Jones announced that CJI would take place on the same weekend as ADCC 2024, it was clear that the best competitors in the world would have a very tough decision to make. While it will no doubt attract a few big names who were never invited to ADCC 2024 like former UFC world champion Luke Rockhold, many more of them will be ADCC competitors. With dozens of elite competitors already invited to ADCC 2024, there will be plenty of speculation and anticipation over the next few weeks as fans try to figure out who might make the move next.
The Craig Jones Invitational announced the news that Jozef Chen was turning down his invite to ADCC 2024 in order to compete at their event in a recent post to their official Instagram account:
