Labor Militancy Appears In An Unlikely Place: Competitive Jiu Jitsu

How one submission grappler is challenging the combat sports establishment.

Craig Jones is not your typical labor leader. The 33-year-old Australian is an accomplished jiu jitsu competitor, proud cocaine connoisseur, and owner of one of the most prestigious martial arts academies in the world. But these accolades pale in comparison to his true calling: online trolling.

Not a day goes by in which Jones doesn’t take to his Instagram account to mock his opponents, friends, and critics. However, this weekend, Jones is all business. In an idea that started as a joke, Craig Jones is throwing a wrench into the hyper-exploitative industry of combat sports. By hosting his own high-paying competition on the same weekend as the biggest submission grappling tournament, Jones is bringing the time-tested tactics of labor action to the world of martial arts.

And with over $2.3 million in anonymously sourced cash, he might just pull it off.

The Abu Dhabi Combat Club

Since the start of the 21st-century, the Abu Dhabi Combat Club, better known as ADCC, has dominated the sport of submission grappling. Every two years, the world’s best jiu-jitsu practitioners face off in the “Olympics of grappling,” throwing, pinning, and strangling their opponents to claim the coveted title of ADCC champion.

The tournament began in 1998 as the brainchild of billionaire Sheik Tahnoon, a prominent member of the Abu Dhabi royal family.¹ Tahnoon fell in love with martial arts while studying in the U.S. and created ADCC to promote jiu jitsu in the U.A.E. Nearly three decades later, ADCC has exploded in popularity. This year’s tournament will be hosted in the world-famous T Mobile Arena, home of the Las Vegas Golden Knights.

The poster for 2024 ADCC. Multiple athletes pictured have withdrawn to compete in CJI.

Despite this success and its billionaire backer, ADCC has a glaring issue: athlete compensation. Fighters compete for free, and the winner of each division receives a mere $10,000 — an amount that has not been adjusted for inflation since the first tournament in 1998. Female victors receive only $6,000. There are a handful of cash prizes that will be awarded this year, such as $700 for “Best Fight,” $1,400 for “Fastest Submission,” and a $40,000 purse for the absolute division winner (no-weight limit). But the full picture shows even these are criminally insufficient. ADCC claims there’s a total of $230,600 in prizes available for competitors. But with one hundred and four participants, the average pay-per-athlete is a mere $2,217.31.²

Like the boss at any traditional workplace, ADCC officials have claimed the low pay is due to a lack of funds. While submission grappling will never generate as much revenue as the NFL or NBA, funding is not the issue. ADCC’s head organizer, Mo Jassim, has put millions into what he calls “production value.” According to Jassim, he hired “the country’s best pyrotechnician,” and “doubled his budget.” Another ADCC organizer stated it cost $2 million to rent T Mobile Arena, a 300% increase in venue costs from the last tournament in 2022.³

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Such superfluous spending is no different than the excuse traditional workers hear all the time from their employers. During the 2008 Great Recession, CEOs of the big three automakers laid off workers en masse, citing “lack of profitability.” Meanwhile, they flew private jets to Washington to ask for a taxpayer bailout.⁴

As Jassim publicly bragged online about the spectacle he was planning for ADCC 2024, athletes began to question why they were being paid nothing while the event poured money into unnecessary venues and laser shows. One of those critics was two-time ADCC silver medalist Craig Jones, who decided to take matters into his own hands.

The Craig Jones Invitational

To force ADCC to increase athlete pay, Jones announced his own non-profit tournament, the Craig Jones Invitational. The CJI, as it’s come to be known, starts tomorrow, placing it on the same weekend as ADCC. While the decision to overlap with the most prestigious tournament drew criticism, Jones explained the timing was crucial, as that’s when the athletes had the most leverage. Had he scheduled it months away from ADCC, the world-wide tournament could have continued its exploitative practices, unscrutinized. In his appearance on The Joe Rogan Experience (I promise this is the only time I’ll promote Rogan), Jones likened the action to factory workers going on strike during a busy period to maximize pressure and force the boss to raise wages.⁵

“I took a gamble that if we put enough money on the line (athletes) would choose to unionize and come together to turn away the pre-existing prestigious medals… If all the existing (ADCC) champions come together, we can make a statement about grappler pay in the sport.” — Craig Jones on The MMA Hour, May 29th, 2024

CJI will have two men’s brackets, a woman’s super fight, and a match fit for the circus: Craig Jones will face off against Gabbi Garcia, arguably the most formidable female grappler on the planet. Division winners will receive $1 million, and every participant will be paid $10,001, win or lose. (In Craig Jones’ trolling nature, CJI show money is exactly $1 more than the prize for ADCC winners). Unsurprisingly, the increased pay motivated the world’s best grapplers to drop out of ADCC and flock to CJI. In the below video, athletes Nicky Rodriguez and Nicky Ryan explain why they chose CJI over ADCC. (Spoiler alert: it’s the money.)

Jones has made it clear that the purpose of his million-dollar tournament is to show ADCC and other fight promoters that jiu-jitsu athletes are willing to work collectively for higher wages. The tournament, which is by far the most talent-rich in martial arts history, is a non-profit. All ticket sales will be given to charities of the fighters’ choice. Ffion Davies, who is headlining in a super fight against UFC fighter Mackenzie Dern, has pledged her share of the earnings towards MAP, which aids children impacted by the Gazan genocide. Other charities include relief for cancer patients and refugees displaced by the Russian-Ukraine War.

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While the Craig Jones Invitational looks very different from a a traditional labor action, it comes from the same inspiration: It is labor, not capital, that creates value. Therefore, it should be the laborers who reap the greatest rewards.

Whether it is the Starbucks baristas who brew our morning coffee or the high-skilled athletes who put their bodies on the line for our entertainment, workers are the ones who make the world go round. CJI athletes won’t file for an election with the National Labor Relations Board, nor will they march a picket line outside the T Mobile Arena. Given the uniqueness of their workplace, their labor action will look much different than one undertaken by you or I. But just as every job is different, so is every labor action. Despite the unique form, the Craig Jones Invitational is a workers’ movement that deserves our support and affirmation.

Also, it’s going to be the greatest jiu jitsu competition ever assembled. You don’t want to miss it.

The Craig Jones Invitational will stream live and free on YouTube and Facebook at 3 p.m. on Friday, August 16th, and 5 p.m. on August 17th. You can watch it here.

1. https://projects.icij.org/investigations/pandora-papers/power-players/en/player/tahnoon-bin-zayed-al-nahyan

2. https://adcombat.com/adcc-rules-regulations/adcc-championship-prize-money-allocation/

3. https://www.reddit.com/r/bjj/comments/1b7lkbx/seth_daniels_weighs_in_on_the_adcc_payouts/

4. https://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/WallStreet/story?id=6285739&page=1

5. https://ogjre.com/episode/jre-mma-show-157-with-craig-jones