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.
The Craig Jones Invitational has suffered a loss at the 11th hour, as Mason Fowler has now had to withdraw from the tournament. It’s a pretty unfortunate turn of events for the promotion, as Fowler was going to be one of the top contenders to win the over 80kg division. He’s an entertaining and very successful grappler who stood out even among the top competitors in the lineup for the Craig Jones Invitational, and no doubt there were plenty of fans excited to see him stepping on the mats against some of the other big names in the tournament.
Fowler actually has some history on the mats with one of the favorites to win the whole thing too, as he recently lost on points to Nicky Rodriguez at UFC Fight Pass Invitational 7. That’s one reason Fowler was likely looking forward to competing at the event, as getting one back against Rodriguez would be great motivation. Of course, the main reason that any competitor is looking forward to competing at the inaugural Craig Jones Invitational is the million-dollar prize available for the winner. The fact that everyone who enters the tournament is getting paid an impressive amount of $10,000 in show money is pretty appealing too.
Like many other grapplers competing in the Craig Jones Invitational, Mason Fowler gave up a lot to be there as well. He had already received a public invite to ADCC 2024 and accepted the opportunity by the time that CJI had even been created, leaving him with a rather difficult choice. Fowler was actually one of the first to make the decision to leave ADCC 2024 to compete at CJI instead, and he was joined by several other elite grapplers shortly afterward. Now that Fowler is out of the tournament, it’ll be interesting to see who Craig Jones can bring in to replace him.
The Craig Jones Invitational announced the news that Mason Fowler had withdrawn from the event in a recent post to their official Instagram account:
