Craig Jones on CJI 3: \"Don't Expect a Million Dollars Again\"

The most disruptive event in modern BJJ is coming back — just don't expect it to be handing out the same cheques. In a recent Q&A, Craig Jones confirmed that the Craig Jones Invitational will return for a third edition, and that the headline number that made the first one famous is unlikely to make the trip with it.

"Don't expect a million dollars again, but expect something exciting to happen," Jones said, in his usual half-joking register, per BJJEE — before closing with the event's unofficial motto: CJI's back, and if it ain't in the pit, it ain't anything at all. You can watch the full Q&A on YouTube, delivered with exactly the level of seriousness you'd expect from the man.

Why the million mattered in the first place

It's worth remembering just how absurd CJI looked when it landed in 2024. A million dollars to each division winner, five-figure show money for every athlete just for walking out, and the whole thing streamed free — parked deliberately on the same weekend as ADCC, the sport's most prestigious event. Grapplers who had spent whole careers splitting modest purses suddenly had a real payday on the table, and nearly every big name in no-gi Jiu Jitsu had to at least think about it.

The money was never really the point, though. The point was the argument the money made: that elite grapplers were underpaid, that fans would show up for a spectacle built around athletes rather than sanctioning bodies, and that one loud Australian with backers could prove it in a single weekend. On those terms, CJI won. Athlete pay has been part of every serious conversation about professional grappling since — you can hear its echo every time a top competitor now weighs up whether a major tournament is worth the training camp.

That's also why Jones walking the number back isn't the deflating news it might first appear. Revolutions are expensive; institutions are sustainable. He was candid — in his own way — about how much the first two events cost to stage, joking that in hindsight he wished he'd quietly pocketed the seven million rather than spending it. No promoter making that joke is sitting on a bottomless war chest.

What a smaller purse actually means for Jiu Jitsu

Here's the honest question for the rest of us: does CJI still matter if the cheque shrinks? Almost certainly yes — and the reason is instructive for anyone who cares where BJJ is heading.

CJI's real product was never the prize money. It was the format. The pit instead of a flat mat, so there are no out-of-bounds resets and nowhere to hide. Rulesets tilted toward action. Production that treated grapplers like prizefighters instead of entries on a bracket sheet. Free streaming that let a casual fan stumble into world-class Jiu Jitsu without a paywall in the way. Two editions in, that package has enough reputation to draw top talent on its own — the way ADCC's prestige did for decades before anyone was writing seven-figure cheques.

There's a lesson in that for the average practitioner, too, and it's one every hobbyist already knows from the mats: the flashy thing gets attention, but the structure underneath is what keeps working. The million dollars was CJI's flying armbar. The pit, the ruleset, and the athlete-first attitude are its half guard — less cinematic, far more repeatable.

What we know, and what we don't

For now, the concrete details are thin. No confirmed date, no format, no prize structure — just Jones confirming the event's return and managing expectations on the purse while promising "something exciting" in its place. Given that his last public musing on the subject involved floating a $10 million, eight-man tournament, the honest range of possibilities remains comically wide. That's part of the fun of following anything Craig Jones does: the announcement is never the whole story.

What seems safe to say is that the third edition will be judged on a harder standard than the first two. Novelty carried CJI 1; scale carried CJI 2. CJI 3 will have to prove the thing Jones has been claiming all along — that grappling fans will turn up for great matchmaking and a format built for violence, not just for a lottery jackpot. If that's true, it's the best possible news for the sport, because jackpots run out and good ideas don't.

We'll be watching for the first names announced. Until then — see you on the mats, or in the pit.

Original report via BJJEE.