Three more elite competitors have just been confirmed for two of the different Team Misfits in the Craig Jones Invitational (CJI) 2 lineup. The updates are coming in thick and fast for the biggest professional grappling event of the year and with three different versions of Team Misfits and each team’s wildcard entry, there’s going to be plenty of surprises. The recent news release started with the unveiling of the Team Misfits Americas coach, Greg Souders. Not many people would have predicted that turn of events and although he might be a polarising figure, Souders is a successful coach who should be able to have a big impact on his team.
As if that wasn’t surprising enough, Souders then also confirmed the first choice he had in mind for his team and he actually picked one of his own students:
“Deandre Corbe for 66kg is confirmed, and that’s all I know right now.”
That makes Corbe the first and currently only competitor on the Americas team and the next announcement came from Craig Jones himself; concerning the lineup for the European Team Misfits:
“We can confirm Owen Jones (and) Mateusz Szczecinski will be the sort of… they don’t have to earn their spot on Team Euros. They’ll be on that European team.”
The European team will be captained by Faris Ben-Lamkadem and these are the first two slots to be taken, with three more remaining right now. Although Jones didn’t specify which weight class Jones and Szczecinski have entered, it’s pretty obvious given their competitive history. Jones has historically competed at the lighter end of the scale and had his breakout performance at ADCC 2024 at under 66kg, while Szczecinski is a veteran of the under 77kg division and has hardly ever competed any heavier than that.
The three latest Team Misfits competitors for CJI 2 were announced in a recent video uploaded to the official B-Team Jiu-Jitsu YouTube channel:
