Craig Jones slams 'pathetic' ADCC for allegedly paying Jon Jones $50k to attend their recent event
19/08/2024 15:43
After hosting one of the most-watched grappling tournaments of all time this past weekend, Craig Jones has slammed his competition, the ADCC, for allegedly paying UFC heavyweight champion Jon Jones $50,000 to attend their recent event.
The world of combat sports is getting more bizarre, year by year, and when one of the world’s best grapplers, Craig Jones, announced he would be having an intergender super fight against Gabi Garcia, it continued that theme.
Jones went on to submit Garcia via a rear-naked-choke in round two, becoming the first ‘intergender champion’.
On the same weekend, ADCC hosted its 2024 championships, in which world champion grappler, Gordon Ryan competed and became a seven-time ADCC champion.
Craig Jones claims ADCC paid Jon Jones $50k to attend their event
In the lead-up to Jones’ controversial Craig Jones Invitational event, the 33-year-old wasn’t worried about his event clashing with the ADCC’s, because he was putting up an insane amount of money for his tournament winners, making it a more desirable event.
After the massive success of his event, Jones admitted that he would do it again, despite claiming that he had received death threats from the organizers of ADCC.
Jones’ event had a plethora of well-known names competing in it, such as Kade Ruotolo, Luke Rockhold, and Mackenzie Dern, meaning there were equally well-known people in attendance to watch the spectacle.
Demetrious Johnson was seen front row dapping up Rockhold during his match, and UFC bantamweight title challenger, Merab Dvalishvili was also in attendance, where at one point he jumped into the crowd to confront a heckler.
Gordon Ryan posted a photo of him and UFC heavyweight champion, Jon Jones, on his Instagram following the event, with the caption: “All my friends are here to watch me make history.”
Responding to Ryan’s post in a now-deleted post of his own, Craig Jones claimed that the ADCC paid the UFC champion $50k to attend their event.
“The c*** literally got paid 50 racks to show up and watch you mate, you don’t have any f****** friends. ADCC that’s pathetic that you’d pay Jon Jones to watch you compete, oof,” the Australian said in a video.
Craig Jones explains the reason behind his event
Following his monumentally successful inaugural event, Jones explained that the reason he decided to do it was for the athletes, claiming that the ADCC doesn’t treat their athletes very well.
“This was for the athletes really, the people that run ADCC currently don’t really treat the athletes very well, Gabi’s participation in this robbed her of hall of fame but she’s already won four world titles, more than that, it was to draw in the mainstream audience,” Jones said.
It is unknown whether the grappling ace will host another wild Craig Jones Invitational, however, because of the first event being a sellout and being widely appreciated by the grappling community, it is likely that he will.
