The roster for the Craig Jones Invitational just keeps growing, as top competitor Pedro Alex has now joined the over 80kg division. He is one of the few men in the lineup who wasn’t originally supposed to be competing at ADCC 2024, but he will still be very tough to beat regardless. Alex has already stood on the podium of some of the most prestigious events in the sport, most recently at the IBJJF World Championship 2024 where he won a silver medal in the ultra-heavyweight division. Although that was obviously in the gi, it’s still an incredibly high level grappling event that requires incredible skill to succeed in.
He’s enjoyed plenty of success at the highest level of the sport for quite some time now in fact and one of his biggest no gi wins came earlier this year at ADXC 3. He was able to get a convincing unanimous decision win over fellow top competitor and two-time ADCC Trials winner Dan Manasoiu at the event, and the format might be of particular interest to the minds behind the Craig Jones Invitational. The Abu Dhabi Extreme Championship uses the same round-format that CJI has proposed, and that win showed that Alex has the right style to succeed under those conditions.
Pedro Alex will be a dark horse who could surprise quite a few fans watching the Craig Jones Invitational, but it would take something special to win four matches in row in such an amazing bracket. It’s going to be impossible to predict who will win the division really though, and not just because there’s so many elite competitors in one tournament. With the biggest prize in the history of professional grappling on the line, every one of them will be fighting tooth and nail to take home a million dollars.
The Craig Jones Invitational announced the news that Pedro Alex was going to join the over 80kg division in a recent post to their official Instagram account: