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.
Top European grappler Tommy Langaker has just announced that he will be turning down his ADCC 2024 invite in order to compete in the inaugural Craig Jones Invitational instead. He is yet another competitor who won ADCC Trials in order to earn a place at this year’s ADCC, but has now decided to switch tournaments instead. There have been several of them so far and no doubt the fact that they have the opportunity to win a million dollars at CJI is going to be one of the main reasons that they have all decided to give up the invite they worked so hard for.
Another factor is of course the show money, as athletes like Tommy Langaker who have made the decision to switch to the Craig Jones Invitational will now be paid more money just to step on the mats than they would have if they won ADCC 2024. Langaker was originally due to compete at under 77kg at ADCC and he now enters an incredibly competitive under 80kg division at CJI, alongside several other ADCC Trials winners and veterans of the sport. Despite the tough opposition in front of him, Langaker would still be considered one of the top contenders in the bracket regardless.
Langaker earned his place at ADCC 2024 by winning the ADCC European, Middle-Eastern, and African Trials 2024 and he had to beat some elite grapplers in order to make it there in the first place. The level of competition will be nothing new to him, but then neither are some of the exact opponents that he might end up facing too. His most recent match was actually a submission loss to Andrew Tackett at Who’s Number One 23 and given that Tackett is entering CJI as well, this sets up the opportunity for Langaker to settle the score in a rematch.
Tommy Langaker announced the news that he was leaving ADCC 2024 in order to compete in the Craig Jones Invitational in a recent post to his official Instagram account:
