Craig Jones Invitational 2025 (CJI 2): Why is it So Hyped?

Brazilian Jiu Jitsu provides its athletes and practitioners with many opportunities to showcase their talents and skills on the world stage. Throughout the year, many tournaments happen in which BJJ practitioners can take part from across the world. Some of these provide less prize money for the final winners, while others give more. So BJJ grapplers have the versatility they can enjoy. One of the fastest growing martial arts in the world currently is Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, and so with it, the events are also increasing to make it even more interesting and to give its fans a lot more to watch. Recently, there has been another addition to the list of BJJ events, which is the Craig Jones Invitational. Let’s discuss what this is and why it's so hyped.

Craig Jones is an Australian grappler who trains in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. He is a BJJ black belt. He has the belt under Lachlan Giles. He is a very good grappler and undoubtedly one of the best currently in No Gi Jiu Jitsu. He has won many titles to his name in his BJJ career, such as Polaris Pro Grappling champion three times and ADCC Submission Wrestling World Championship silver medalist. He is famous among BJJ fans and has contributed a lot to his martial art.

• Craig Jones Invitational is a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu grappling event just like ADCC and IBJJF. It was created by Craig Jones himself under the Fair Fight Foundation. It is a non profit event with its basic aim to counter the low paying BJJ events like ADCC. The minimum payout of a grappler in CJI is 10000 USD, and the winner wins a one million USD cash prize.
• So it is a very high paying event as compared to existing BJJ championships, particularly ADCC. The event has superfights and has two divisions based on the weight of grapplers. The first division is grapplers who weigh up to 90 kg, and the second division involves the grapplers who weigh more than 80 kg.

The reasons why Craig Jones launched his own event in the world of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu are multi fold. Let’s discuss this one by one:

The first reason why Craig Jones launched his own event is to give more payouts to all BJJ practitioners who will participate in the event. The payouts BJJ athletes receive are much less than what other martial arts athletes receive in their sports. So this was a disappointment for Craig, and he decided to solve this issue by introducing his own event, but with higher payouts, even more than events like IBJJF and ADCC.

Craig noticed some weak points in the existing BJJ events and felt the need for improvements. So, in order to provide the fans and athletes with better and more exciting BJJ tournaments or competitions, he introduced a new event to the world.

Craig aimed to introduce the first major tournament offering the best prize money to winners among all BJJ tournaments. This caught the attention of both fans and athletes at the event, and it became famous in no time.

The rules and regulations of CJI follow an aggressive and submission based grappling to give fans entertaining and exciting matches to watch.

• It is not a single combination of martial arts. Instead, it adds both BJJ and MMA into its elements. The event mostly follows a Karate Combat style.

• Regarding the number and duration of rounds, the format of the Craig Jones Invitational follows the UFC and includes three rounds of five minutes each. For scoring, the total points are ten.

• There will be eight teams competing in the event, and each team can have one wildcard. A wildcard is a BJJ athlete and member of the team who does not follow the usual criteria to fit into the team. The one who gets the submission will be the winner, and they will face the next member of the opponent team by staying in the pit.

• The order in which the members of the first team will compete against their opponent will be decided by the coach during the match. The team that wins against all of its opponents first will be the winner of the fight.

The coming Craig Jones Invitational of the year 2025 is all famous and hyped for all the positive reasons, some of which are given as follows:

• Craig Jones, with the aim of bringing something unique and exciting, has introduced the team based fighting in the CJI 2. In this event, there are eight teams that compete against each other. The fighting takes place in a Quintet style format. This is more like a traditional fight in which one grappler takes on one opponent. When one of them submits their opponent and wins the fight, then the winner stays in the pit, and another one from the opponent team comes and tries to beat the winner. The winner stays in the pit until they are winning the fights, and another member from the opponent team continues coming one by one.

• So this is a very interesting and exciting fighting style. Fans are entertained very much more at the other BJJ competitions. Each team consists of five members, and the team that submits all the members of the opponent team first wins the fighting match. So this is how this CJI's fighting style happens. Sometimes, all team members get their turn to fight, and other times, only one or two members win the fight for their whole team, and other members of the winning team keep waiting for their turn. So this is the unique fighting style introduced by Craig, which is why it is so hyped.

• Craig Jones had the basic aim or target to make such a grappling event, which is a lot more highly paying for the BJJ practitioners, which is better than ADCC and IBJJF in terms of payouts. So this is another thing that makes the event so interesting, that as soon as it comes in a year, everyone gets excited about it. Whether it is about fans or BJJ athletes, both are eager to participate in the event by watching or grappling. This is a very big reason for the event being famous.

• The reason for it is that the BJJ athletes were disappointed before the CJI's introduction to the world due to the low payouts, even in big events such as ADCC or IBJJF. With the introduction of CJI, all the disappointments of grapplers vanished, and they started participating in the new event eagerly.

• With the goal in mind, the CJI has fixed the minimum payout for a practitioner to be $10,000, and for the winner in the CJI event finale, to get the whopping prize money of one million dollars. So that is really a big amount, and it can be compared with the prize money of other big sporting or martial arts events in the world.

• CJI 2 in the year 2025 is not a usual event, as it is fulfilling all the requirements for being hyped. In this event for the current year, the biggest grappling clash of the year is scheduled to take place soon after the event starts. Craig Jones himself has decided to challenge the opponents. He has signed with the CJI for the year to fight. He is not an ordinary player. A famous wrestler, Gable Stevenson, who is a gold medalist and world champion in his age group several times, will grapple against Craig.

• So this is going to be a big match. Craig himself is a very experienced and famous grappler and a black belt. So he will be showcasing his years of expertise, talents, and skills against the most experienced and world champion wrestler, Gable Stevenson. This is giving the fans the biggest and most exciting clash of the year to happen soon. So just stay tuned for a big match, a clash of titans from wrestling and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu.

• CJI 2 is not an ordinary event like a local or national one. Instead, it is a world event that tends to invite grapplers and players from across the world. So it makes it a global event so that all grappling fans, no matter from what part of the world they are to can see the match and feel connected. Moreover, everything is up to the standard here as required.

• The coaches are not ordinary and are the world's best in the business. So many of the big players will be joining the event. Imagine great players like Craig Jones himself, John Danaher, Lachlan Giles, Eddie Bravo, and the most famous teams like 10th Planet Jiu Jitsu, New Wave, Team Americas, and B Team, all will be seen fighting against each other to get the world's biggest cash prize of one million dollars.

• The first year of CJI, i.e., CJI 1 in 2024, had a lot of things that were so good, and everyone appreciated it. But it had one flaw, which attracted a lot of criticism from the fans and BJJ athletes across the world. That thing was the lack of women players. Some criticized the event as a discriminatory event, as it included only the men's grapplers. While others called the event not entertaining, as both men and women should be a part of it.

• So this event has one lack that was not found in other grappling events. So Craig Jones took that seriously, and reports are saying that the coming CJI event will include both men and women grapplers so that everyone can participate in the event irrespective of their gender, and no one has any issue and feels not being entertained.

Craig Jones has contributed a lot to the martial art of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. The art is now even more popular, and fans love watching the event because of the excitement and entertainment it gives. They can watch all their famous and favorite world BJJ stars grappling at one event. You do not need to be a male as the event allows participation to both men and women. It has given a new shape to modern Jiu Jitsu, solving many of the problems being faced by practitioners. It has saved many of the athletes from being disappointed by offering a million dollar cash prize. That is why it is hyped a lot.

Craig Jones is an Australian grappler who trains in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. He is a BJJ black belt. He has the belt under Lachlan Giles. He has won many titles to his name in his BJJ career, such as Polaris Pro Grappling champion three times and ADCC Submission Wrestling World Championship silver medalist. He is famous among BJJ fans and has contributed a lot to his martial art.

• Craig Jones Invitational is a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu grappling event just like ADCC and IBJJF. It was created by Craig Jones himself under the Fair Fight Foundation. It is a non profit event with its basic aim to counter the low paying BJJ events like ADCC. The minimum payout of a grappler in CJI is 10000 USD, and the winner wins a 1 million USD cash prize.
• So it is a very high paying event as compared to existing BJJ championships, particularly ADCC. The event has superfights and has two divisions based on the weight of grapplers. The first division is grapplers who weigh up to 90 kg, and the second division involves grapplers who weigh more than 80 kg.

The reasons why Craig Jones launched his own event in the world of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu are the following:

• Better Payouts For BJJ Athletes

• To Have a Better Alternative For BJJ Athletes

• A Significant Event For More Attention

The Rules and Regulations in Craig Jones Invitational 2025 (CJI 2) are the following:

• It adds both BJJ and MMA into its elements.

• The event mostly follows a Karate Combat style.

• The format of the Craig Jones Invitational follows the UFC and includes three rounds of five minutes each.

• For scoring, the total points are ten.

• There will be eight teams competing in the event, and each team can have one wildcard with a total of five members.

• The one who gets the submission will be the winner, and they will face the next member of the opponent team by staying in the pit.

• The order in which the members of the first team will compete against their opponent will be decided by the coach during the match.

• The team that wins against all of its opponents first will be the winner of the fight.

The Craig Jones Invitational of the year 2025 is hyped for all the positive reasons, some of which are given as follows:

• CJI 2 is a Team Based Grappling Event

• Biggest Cash Prize For The Winner Compared to All Other BJJ Competitions

• Craig Jones Vs Gable Steveson: A Clash of Titans

• Teams From Across the World And the World’s Best Coaches

• No Discrimination, Both Men and Women Can Participate