Craig Jones Slams ADCC Over Izaak Michell Roster Spot

Craig Jones has put the biggest name in competitive Jiu Jitsu on the spot, publicly slamming ADCC for keeping Izaak Michell on the official roster for the 2026 World Championships. According to reporting from BJJEE, the Polish organizers republished the competitor list this week with Michell's name still on it — and Jones, never one to hold his tongue, took to his Instagram stories to ask why.

The short version, for anyone who hasn't been tracking the story: Michell, the Australian grappler, has been the subject of months of speculation after FloGrappling briefly removed him from its published competitor list and the official ADCC invite page vanished for close to two months. This week's republished roster, with his name intact, is what set Jones off. His comments arrive alongside a report from Australian outlet 10 News Plus that two arrest warrants have been issued for Michell — the first out of Hays County, Texas, where the Sheriff's Office has reportedly put out a wanted poster and a $1,000 reward for information on his whereabouts, and a second said to have been issued in late February 2026. We want to be clear about the language here: these are allegations and warrants, not convictions, and Michell has not been found guilty of anything.

Why a promoter's roster becomes everyone's problem

Jones' argument, stripped of the profanity, is a governance one. "Hey, sponsors, say something. Hey, streaming platforms, maybe say something. Hey, the promoter of the event, maybe say something," he said, per BJJEE, adding, "Because there's a great likelihood that there's a victim there." Whatever you think of Jones as a personality — and he has built a career on being the sport's chief agitator — the underlying question is a fair one. When a competitor is wanted on serious allegations, does a governing body have any duty to pause an invitation while the situation plays out?

There's no clean answer, and that's exactly why it matters. On one side sits the principle every one of us would want extended to ourselves: you are innocent until proven otherwise, and organizations that start pulling opportunities on the strength of an accusation head down a road with no obvious end. On the other side sits the reality that ADCC isn't a courtroom. It's a private event with sponsors, a streaming deal, and a duty of care to the athletes and fans who show up. A wanted poster naming one of your listed competitors as a martial arts expert is not a neutral fact. Most organizations in most industries would, at minimum, hit pause.

What this says about where Jiu Jitsu is now

Step back and the bigger story is about the sport growing up in public. ADCC is the closest thing Brazilian Jiu Jitsu has to a world championship, and the fact that its roster decisions now draw the kind of scrutiny you'd expect around an Olympic team is a sign of how far competitive grappling has come. Money, sponsors, streaming platforms, mainstream media picking up the thread — that's the machinery of a real sport. And real sports get held to account for who they platform.

For the average person who trains, none of this changes your Tuesday-night rolls. But it's worth caring about anyway, because the culture at the top filters down. The values a governing body signals — who gets a paid trip to compete, what gets quietly waved through, what gets addressed head-on — shape the tone of the whole community. Most of us came to Jiu Jitsu for the gym that felt like a second home, the one where you trusted the person cranking on your neck to let go. That trust is the sport's actual product. When the biggest promotion in the game looks like it's ducking a hard call, it chips at that trust for everyone wearing a belt.

The uncomfortable middle

It would be easier if this were simple. It isn't. Due process is real and it protects all of us; so is an organization's responsibility to the people in its building. Jones, for all his showmanship, has forced a conversation the sport would probably rather not have during its biggest week — and forcing uncomfortable conversations is, love him or not, something he's genuinely good at.

As of now ADCC, its sponsors, and the streaming partners named have not publicly responded, and Michell remains on the list. How they answer — or whether they answer at all — will tell us something about what competitive Jiu Jitsu wants to be as it steps further into the mainstream spotlight.

We'll keep an eye on it. In the meantime, look after your training partners, and we'll see you on the mats.

Original report via BJJEE.