In a dramatic development following the controversial Craig Jones Invitational 2 finals, B-Team has released footage from pre-tournament rules meetings to counter allegations that the competition’s judging criteria were fabricated or manipulated to deny New Wave Jiu-Jitsu their victory.
The revelation comes after Gordon Ryan’s scathing accusations of corruption and rule manipulation. Ryan had posted what appeared to be contractual evidence suggesting his team should have won based on individual bout victories, but B-Team’s newly released meeting footage tells a different story.
According to the video, multiple rules meetings were held leading up to the event—totaling four or five sessions—where crucial modifications were discussed and agreed upon by all parties. The footage reveals that what initially appeared to be a straightforward
“team with more individual wins”
criterion evolved into something more nuanced during these preparatory meetings.
“In follow up rules meetings it became apparent that a 10-8 win shouldn’t have equal value as a 10-9 win. This lead to the decision of a total team score,”
the meeting shows. The rules were further clarified to state:
“if tied on scorecards, the team whose athlete won the final bout wins. If the final bout is a draw, the win goes to the team whose athlete last won a non-draw bout.”
This directly contradicts Ryan’s claims that the
“last match”
tiebreaker was a fabricated rule created after the fact to justify B-Team’s victory. The meeting footage demonstrates that all teams were present and aware of these modifications well before competition began.
When judges’ scorecards showed a perfect 47-47 tie across all three officials, the
“last match”
tiebreaker came into play, awarding victory to B-Team based on Nick Rodriguez’s 10-8 round score against Luke Griffith.
John Danaher, New Wave’s legendary coach, had previously questioned the scoring inconsistencies in a measured Instagram response.
“We won 3 out of five matches, but in a rather perplexing final decision the teams were judged as a draw because one of the B team’s victories was judged a 10-8 round, apparently disregarding one of our athletes victories which was almost identically dominant but judged only 10-9,”
he wrote.
While Danaher focused on the apparent disparities in scoring—noting that Dorian Olivarez’s dominant performance with multiple guard passes only earned a 10-9, while Rodriguez received a 10-8 for what Ryan characterized as
“a single guard pass and holding a body lock for 2 minutes”
—the coach maintained his characteristic diplomacy throughout the controversy.
The situation took another unexpected turn when an anonymous donor, later revealed to be the same benefactor behind CJI’s prize money, announced plans to award New Wave an additional $1 million.
“From my interpretation of the rules, New Wave should have won,”
the donor stated, adding that while there was
“no bad intent from Craig, Seth, the judges, or anyone,”
the situation needed to be made right.
Craig Jones, the tournament organizer, responded tersely to the donor’s decision:
“Investors decision not mine. I don’t agree.”
Despite the heated exchanges and accusations, the tournament achieved remarkable success metrics, with broadcasts peaking at over 120,000 live viewers and accumulating over 2.5 million views across platforms.
