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.
ADCC 2024 has just suffered another big blow as Nicky Ryan has officially announced his withdrawal from the tournament, and he will now be competing for the million dollar prize at the Craig Jones Invitational instead. This is the latest in a series of revelations that have hurt the drawing power of what is traditionally the world’s most prestigious no gi grappling tournament. William and Andrew Tackett were the first to leave ADCC in favor of CJI and shortly after they made the announcement, an even bigger impact was made when they were joined by one of the reigning ADCC world champions.
In a shocking announcement, Ffion Davies revealed that she would not compete for a second ADCC world title and would be taking on an unnamed opponent at CJI instead. It’s still very early days as Craig Jones Invitational will feature two brackets of 16 male competitors and even after the inclusion of former UFC world champion Luke Rockhold and Nicky Ryan, only 5 out of the 32 grapplers have been confirmed so far. With so many spaces left in the tournaments and the potential for superfights, there is still plenty of room for other ADCC competitors to make the change after this.
Ryan was originally supposed to compete in the under 77kg division at ADCC 2024 so he will like transfer over to the under 80kg division at CJI, and the only other grappler in that lineup so far is Andrew Tackett. Not only is Ryan one of the most popular competitors in his weight class with a ton of high-level experience, but he’s also coming off the biggest win of his career over JT Torres at WNO 23. This submission win was a clear sign that Ryan was going to be a serious contender this year but with the opportunity to compete for a million dollars in prize money, this decision makes perfect sense.
Nicky Ryan announced the news that he was withdrawing from ADCC 2024 in order to compete at the Craig Jones Invitational in a recent post to his official Instagram account:
