Mo Jassim, the (now) former head organizer of ADCC (Abu Dhabi Combat Club), has a long and passionate history with the prestigious grappling event. His involvement began in 2000 when he attended ADCC as a spectator while visiting his brother in Abu Dhabi. Instantly captivated by the high-level competition, Jassim’s love for ADCC was born.
In 2006, Jassim moved to Abu Dhabi and befriended the ADCC team. He started working with the organization in 2007, initially in a minor role handing out wristbands. However, his extensive knowledge of grappling and stars quickly propelled him up the ranks. By 2009, he was handling invites and brackets for the event.
Mo Jassim, also known by his online alias Motar2k, emerged as an online figure in the Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO) community in 2014.
Motar2k first caught the community’s attention with a series of large donations to professional players and streamers. His most famous donation was $15,000 to Jarosław “pashaBiceps” Jarząbkowski, which brought the Polish player to tears. Over just a couple of months, Motar2k donated approximately $50,000 to various CS:GO personalities.
Beyond donations, Motar2k set records for case openings on Twitch, including a 3,000-case opening stream in November 2014 and later a 5,000-case stream. He also invited banned player Braxton “swag” Pierce to his home to teach him CS:GO, which he live-streamed.
He continued to make occasional donations and engage with the community.
Mo Jassim allegedly works in real estate although it’s unclear where hiis income, if any, comes from. It’s more than likely that Jassim comes from a wealthy family. His Twitter account, created in 2018, reveals a lifestyle reminiscent of an influencer – living in Puerto Rico, working out, dating a social media celebrity, and attending high-profile events.
Jassim’s big break came in 2017 when he organized the ADCC West Coast Trials, featuring a great superstar special event between Gordon Ryan and Leandro Lo. Ryan ended up losing 4-0 to Lo. The success of this event led him to approach ADCC leadership about running the World Championships. His request was granted, making him the first person to organize ADCC twice in a row.
Jassim takes pride in ADCC’s unique ruleset, which he believes strikes a balance between favoring wrestlers, submission specialists, and positional grapplers.
Jassim’s goal was to elevate ADCC and submission grappling as a whole, showcasing its potential as a professional sport.
During his time promoting ADCC, Jassim detailed challenges faced by jiu-jitsu event organizers – dealing with bad actors, greedy organizers, and entitled athletes.
Jassim often talked about the need for high production values, investing heavily in elements such as LED screens, pyrotechnics, and live performances. He secured pricey well-known announcers like Bruce Buffer and Lenne Hardt to elevate the event’s profile in 2022. This attention to production quality helped create an atmosphere that rivals mainstream sports events, according to his own account.
Marketing plays a crucial role in Jassim’s strategy. By selling tickets well in advance and creating buzz around the event, he has managed to sell out venues quickly and generate unprecedented interest. The success of ADCC 2022, with over 10,000 attendees expected, demonstrates the effectiveness of this approach.
ADCC 2022 did get some criticism, but the brunt of it was on Seth Daniels, Jassim’s collaborator who would lash out at the community for entirely valid criticism. The event was late, it featured an overly long introduction akin to the opening day of the Olympics, and in general failed to improve on the actual production value of the event. Flograppling’s horrible system all but guarantees you will miss some of the action and will be rewatching clips.
Attracting mainstream audiences was a key focus for Jassim. He believed that to grow the sport, events must appeal to people who may not be familiar with grappling. But Jassim’s vision got major pushback once it was revealed just how much the event had spent on these production elements while still maintaining the athlete compensation model from the tournament’s inception in the 1990s.
Jassim wasn’t entirely oblivious to the failings in the ADCC model. In a now-deleted interview with Morning Kombat, he acknowledged that athlete compensation would have to evolve.
“Generally speaking, the prize money, it hasn’t changed since 1998 ever since the beginning. So it was very good back then. That is one thing. Will probably have a conversation with them about hopefully for this one is maybe, hey, let’s upgrade the pay grade for this one,” said Jassim.
He went on to acknowledge that the payouts are nowhere close to what athletes in sports like mixed martial arts are earning nowadays. “But in terms of the purse, what’s it called? In the grand scheme of things, I think it’s about 250 k across the board. So very, you know, we’re very well behind MMA and stuff like that.”
There were also rumblings that a private issue between Jassim and one of UFC Fight Pass execs voided the deal ADCC had with UFC’s streaming service – instead, the ADCC would return to the community pariah, Flograppling.
The cracks started showing in February of 2024. According to submission specialist Craig Jones, despite the event’s significant growth in attendance and visibility—going from 2,000 attendees in 2015 to 13,000 in 2022—prize money for division winners remains stagnant at $10,000.
Streaming rights were sold for over $1 million in 2022, yet athletes receive no share of this revenue. Jones, who earns far more from online instructionals and seminars, questioned if competing at ADCC is worth the effort given the lack of appearance fees and inadequate prize money. He suggested that ADCC should increase its financial rewards to match the sport’s growth.
ADCC, with the head of promotion in Jassim, refused to indulge Jones in any capacity. This led to a public roast in which Jones initially offered a free seminar with proceeds going to every grappler who gets eliminated on day one of ADCC, and therefore leaves the ‘Olympics of Grappling’, which requires a multi-month camp, empty-handed.
After push back from Daniels, Jones would go on to secure his own funding and book an event to compete with the ADCC, The Craig Jones Invitational.
While many were initially skeptical about the event, Jones secured $3M in funding and offered unparalleled prizes in a BJJ contest. ADCC’s roster was very much compromised and many divisions paled in comparison to previous years. The long running promotion resorted to unretiring a number of old champions and heavily relying on Jassim’s personal friendship with team New Wave’s Gordon Ryan.
Despite his initial tantrum, Jassim was forced to provide show money for grapplers competing in ADCC 2024. According to Craig Jones’ leaked voicemail featuring Jassim, there was now $2500 minimum a.k.a. show money and the money went as far as 6-figures for star talent.
ADCC 2024 received lukewarm reviews with the biggest moment in competition being the injury/submission loss Nicholas Meregali took on day one. Flograppling even attempted to livestream one of the divisions on their youtube only to quit mid stream after the views were middling at best. The stream peaked at about 15k live viewers (according to our own report) – compared to CJI’s stream which peaked at 150k and had 60k live audience at the very start of the show.
After the event, Jassim announced that he would be taking a lengthy vacation before it’s decided what happens to ADCC 2026. In his own community, he detailed that he had the option to continue but he wasn’t given the freedom to choose the venue on his own as he had previously.
During his tenure at ADCC, Jassim started running ADCC opens, perhaps inspired by the IBJJF’s for profit model.
On October 13th Jassim announced he is no longer the head organizer of ADCC.
Meanwhile Jassim might be returning to his CS fame roots.
