After the drama surrounding CJI 2, it looks like the Brazilian jiu-jitsu (BJJ) promotion will be paying both B-Team and New Wave $1 million each.
B-Team officially won the $1 million team tournament at CJI 2, but the razor thin final against their longterm rivals in New Wave ended with a bit of controversy.
New Wave won three matches to two, but B-Team’s Nick Rodriguez was unanimously given a 10-8 in his dominant performance over Luke Griffith, which led to a 47-47 tie. CJI officials explained in the
broadcast that in the event of a draw, the tiebreaker would be the score from the final bout, which is also Rodriguez’s clutch 10-8 match.
B-Team was awarded the $1 million prize, but Gordon Ryan and others have repeatedly complained about the decision online. There was confusion on rule explanations and wording, as well as arguments on whether Dorian Olivarez should’ve also received a 10-8 score.
While judging controversies and subjective interpretations of the 10-point must system just seem like a regular weekend for boxing and MMA fans, CJI investors have handled this issue a lot differently.
CJI 2 investor decides to ‘make it right,’ also award New Wave $1 million
To end any talk about fairness, CJI is giving New Wave the same prize money as well.
“New Wave receiving $1 million USD too,” Craig Jones announced on Instagram.
The BJJ star turned CJI promoter also noted in the comments that it was the “investor’s decision, not mine. I don’t agree.”
This “anonymous CJI donor,” says he’s trying to “make it right,” since he personally thought New Wave should’ve won the decision.
“In any case, I’m gonna put up another million to pay New Wave,” he wrote. “There was no bad intent from Craig, Seth, the judges, or anyone. It just went down in a f—d up way and the easiest way to make it right is to simply pay New Wave the $1M that they deserve. So we’ll make it right.”
Jones, who had his retirement match on CJI 2, seems to want to continue his previous plan to “disappear” for a bit, after dealing with all the stress of promoting the massive BJJ event.
“Now no one ever message me again,” Jones wrote after the announcement.
Gordon Ryan still not done ranting about CJI 2
As Craig Jones alluded to, CJI definitely didn’t need to pay New Wave a million dollars, but it’s an over the top gesture for a promotion that has already been paying BJJ athletes record purses. While that would be enough to end the issue for most, it also unsurprisingly didn’t quell the pettiness from New Wave’s biggest star.
Gordon Ryan, who declined to join CJI 2 and didn’t attend the event to coach his teammates, continued his online attacks on the promotion. He reacted to his teammates getting awarded $1 million much like he did while watching the two-day event: by angrily insulting “Crooked Creg” over on Instagram.
“Good — and reverse the decision. Backwards f—k,” he told Craig Jones.
“Not good enough— reverse the decision,” Ryan wrote on a separate Instagram post. “We won.”
The repeated attacks on the promotion that’s been raising purses in jiu-jitsu, have led to other BJJ stars like Gabi Garcia to hit back at Ryan, and threaten to reveal to the public just how “disgusting” he is “behind the phone.”
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