In the recent episode of The Casuals podcast, the inaugural Craig Jones Invitational (CJI) winner Nick Rodriguez opened up about his experience and the impact of the event.
Nick, also known as the “Black Belt Slayer,” shared that the CJI organizers spent over $3 million to put on the event, which took place on the same weekend as the ADCC World Championships. However, to the surprise of many, the CJI was able to make all its money back and then some.
“Wow, they spent 3 million pretty much a little bit over 3 mil, and they made it all back in then some,” Nicky Rod revealed. “Wow, that’s impressive for a three-month event that’s so crazy, [happening] on the same weekend as ADCC.”
Nick expressed his initial skepticism about the event, as he was unsure if the $1 million prize was real. However, once he received confirmation and realized the significant financial opportunity, he decided to compete in the CJI rather than the prestigious ADCC event.
“I was definitely torn, but then I once I realized, got confirmation that, yeah, it’s going to happen, the money’s real, I’m like, ‘F*** it, like with that kind of money, that becomes the most valuable tournament in Jiu-Jitsu,'” Nick said.
The CJI’s innovative format, which featured three-round matches with no out-of-bounds, was a key factor in making the event highly entertaining for viewers. Nick believes the walls and the constant action kept the matches engaging and prevented the usual stop-and-go nature of traditional Jiu-Jitsu competitions.
“The walls played a big factor, and why it was so entertaining, keeping the action prolonged, there was no stop and go, it was just constantly go,” he explained.
But Craig Jones was quick to provide an update on reddit, detailing that the numbers aren’t tallied yet.
While the monetary incentive was a significant draw, Nick also highlighted the growth and evolution of Jiu-Jitsu as a sport. He believes the CJI’s success in attracting a larger audience and making the sport more accessible to casual fans is a positive step forward, similar to how Conor McGregor’s rise helped grow the UFC’s popularity.
B-Team’s youtube stats have certainly showed impressive growth since. In days since CJI, B Team content added a Million views per day on average.
To put things into perspective, Flograppling did roughly one quarter of that.
With a drastic drop off in interest since the event. Even releasing several full matches didn’t exactly help their case. It should be noted that they previously tried hard to censor their own editors and wouldn’t allow any content to be released to the public for free. Video editor Stuart Cooper went on record about getting hired by ADCC and then being told by flograppling that his highlight is not to include any submissions or any matches longer than 5 seconds.
With the CJI’s success and the ongoing rivalry between Nick and Gordon Ryan, the Jiu-Jitsu community is eagerly anticipating a potential showdown between the two elite grapplers. Nick has already called out Ryan for a $1 million match, and fans are eager to see if this high-stakes clash will come to fruition.
