The CJI 2 drama isn’t over yet.
Here’s a refresher for those who need to get quickly caught up: Former teammates turned rivals faced off at CJI 2’s $1 million team tournament finals, and after B-Team beat New Wave due to a tie breaker, Gordon Ryan and others were up in arms complaining about the decision. Promoter Craig Jones then announced that while he disapproves, an “anonymous CJI investor” still wanted to “make it right” and will also pay New Wave $1 million
to settle the issue.While many thought
that’d be the end of it, the drama just continued. Gordon Ryan was still complaining on social media, and a couple of days later, the CJI investor has announced that he has completely changed his mind and won’t be giving New Wave any additional money.
CJI investor: I was wrong, New Wave does not deserve $1 million
Craig Jones and the head CJI judge has recently defended what they call a “perceived controversy” on the 10-point must system and tie breaker rules. After discussing things with the team, the CJI investor noted that he “jumped the gun” and was “wrong” about initially thinking that New Wave won, because he was unaware of a lot of the details and rules behind everything.
In a lengthy statement on Reddit, the CJI investor says he is rescinding the offer as Team New Wave “do not deserve $1M nor do they have any claim to overturn the decision.”
“…The intent of Miha (the head judge) and CJI was made clear across all of the rules meetings. On the night of the event, when New Wave were screaming at CJI staff and judges, it was solely about scoring (which has been adequately explained by Miha and Craig in the recent YouTube video),” the anonymous CJI investor wrote. “New Wave only latched onto the tiebreak-rule inconsistency the next day, indicating even they thought last bout wins during the event, otherwise that would have been a key point on the night.
“I did not know about clause 4.2 of the contract, the explanations in the rules meetings (which I later got access to and personally watched), or New Wave’s argument immediately after the event not even mentioning the tiebreak rules. I jumped the gun before knowing all of the facts (in some ways I feel actively misled), and now that I know them, I think B-Team won, the judges made the right decision, and New Wave do not deserve $1m nor do they have any claim to overturn the decision. So congrats to B-Team, my apologies to Miha, the judging team, and CJI, and now I’ll now go back to sitting down and shutting the f—k up.
“To be clear, I have not sent $1m to CJI to pay to New Wave and don’t intend to. I was going off the partial data they were putting out and my own misunderstanding and/or lack of knowledge of the nuances of the rules, rule meetings, and athlete contracts. It was a mistake to post in the first place but I’m not going to stick to something based on bad information that isn’t in a binding contract. It’s not about the money, it’s about doing what’s right/fair. I’m not gonna let a bunch of loud people complaining or threatening get rewarded for that behavior. It would be so much easier for me to pay, just like it would’ve been so much easier for Miha and the judges to score the last round 10-9, but that’s the cowards way out.”
Craig Jones and Gordon Ryan take shots at each other after rescinded $1 million
Craig Jones and Gordon Ryan have since both reacted to this news of the rescinded $1 million offer to New Wave. Both of their statements went as expected, Jones trolled and hit back at Ryan, while Ryan issued an incredibly long message to complain about CJI and “Crooked Creg” again.
“Offer rescinded. Ya lost. No prizes for second place,” Craig Jones wrote.
Worth pointing out that Jones’ trolling involved putting “Enron” and “Fyre Festival” as his location, and adding “Don’t dream it’s over” and “Call my lawyer” as the music in his two Instagram posts.
Gordon Ryan on the other hand, posted an incredibly long statement, where he rehashed a lot of the same arguments and complaints he made earlier, and took shots at “Crooked Creg” and CJI officials.
Did Gordon Ryan indirectly cost his teammates $1 million?
Gordon Ryan did not compete at CJI 2, nor did he attend or coach his teammates during the event. He did do a whole lot of complaining on social media though. With all the pettiness from both Ryan and Jones, it’s a fair question to ask whether all those insults — even after the announcement of his teammates getting paid $1 million — contributed to the investor’s decision to rescind the offer entirely.
After all, it seems telling that the investor specifically wrote how “I’m not gonna let a bunch of loud people complaining or threatening get rewarded for that behavior,” while Craig Jones’ immediate line was saying “Did you say thank you?” to Gordon Ryan.
Obviously the final decision still falls to the investor himself, but those lines just seem like Ryan’s constant insults really didn’t help. Gordon Ryan of course doesn’t need that prize money and he didn’t even join the event, but the rescinded offer will hurt for the actual athletes who competed in the event. This also directly affects two “wild card picks” in Mica Galvao and Vagner Rocha, who weren’t even involved in any of the New Wave vs. B-Team rivalry before this event.
CJI didn’t really need to offer New Wave $1 million in the first place, as the scoring wouldn’t even be “controversial” by MMA or boxing standards, but it seemed like a good gesture and a huge help for the athletes at the time. Unfortunately for the competitors expecting an additional $200,000 each, that won’t happen anymore.
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