Craig Jones has officially announced a $100,000 women’s bracket for the next Craig Jones Invitational (CJI).
The announcement came through Jones‘ social media, where he revealed plans for a four-woman tournament with the largest prize pool ever offered in women’s competitive jiu-jitsu.
“100k women’s division prize on the @bteamjj credit card. Tag your 4 best women athletes,”
Jones posted, generating immediate buzz throughout the grappling community.
This is an interesting development, considering Jones paid six figures to each of the female participants at CJI 1.
At CJI 1, Jones even gave a post-event interview where he expressed his commitment to women’s jiu-jitsu.
“I’m really excited about the prospect of having a women’s division at the next CJI,” Jones stated at the time. “We were able to secure the funding to pay my teammate Nicky Rod a million dollars for his match, and I want to leverage that success to provide the same level of compensation for the top female grapplers.”
“It’s obviously hard to get the funding, but I didn’t want to do a women’s division and pay them less. I was like, ‘Let’s put on the best women’s match we can ever put on and show how exciting the women are,’ and then I can use that to leverage sponsors to give them a proper million-dollar division.”
Following her win at CJI, Davies strongly advocated for greater representation of women in competitive jiu-jitsu, stating,
“It’s amazing, and I really think we need a women’s division. The women are being left out time and time again. It’s time for that to end.”
Since then, Davies has cashed in on her public exposure by inking an exclusive UFC deal.
In terms of optics, it’s not looking great. CJI 2 aims to pay $100,000 to one of the four female participants. Strictly mathematically speaking, that should be at least $250,000 if Jones is looking to keep his word and not pay the women less—just as he stated in the immediate fallout from the CJI 1 event.
The social media announcement has sparked speculation about which athletes might compete in the high-stakes bracket. Names like Ffion Davies, Adele Fornarino, Helena Crevar, Brianna Stai, Bia Basilio, Margot Ciccarelli, and Amanda Leve are among those frequently mentioned by fans and fellow competitors in response to Jones‘ post.
Of course, Fornarino is also appearing at UFC FPI 11, making her appearance in the bracket highly unlikely (same for Ffion Davies). The UFC has recently doubled down on enforcing exclusive contracts with no exceptions, drawing ire from Craig Jones.
CJI 1 managed to feature four of the biggest female stars in jiu-jitsu. Whether CJI 2 can follow suit remains unclear, especially given the shifting landscape with the UFC entering the scene in a major way.
