CJI 2 Plagued By Draws
CJI 2 went down over the weekend, and unfortunately, it didn’t even come close to hitting the bar that the first event set. The Quintet format was an interesting attempt, but nobody expected to watch a two-night event where the majority of matches resulted in draws.
It was a mix of a clash of styles and strategy, where athletes would purposely stall a match to get a dangerous opponent eliminated. Many athletes also decided to play safe games, which resulted in less than thrilling matches.
Before CJI 2 night two went down, Craig Jones posted a video where he was visibly upset with the performances of many of the athletes during night one. This led him to put down a $50k submission bonus to try and entice the athletes to attack more.
It worked to a degree as we saw more submissions, which included Victor Hugo racking up $100k for two submissions and a few others, but we still saw a lot of draws.
This included a lackluster final between New Wave vs. B-Team went to a judge’s decision after none of the competitors scored a submission win.
Women’s Tournament Athletes Shine
One of the positives of CJI 2 was the women’s $100k tournament. The original CJI format was used, and these women got after it.
All three matches were entertaining; we saw a definitive win by Helena Crevar in the finals against Sarah Galvão.
Hopefully, we get to see a bigger women’s CJI tournament in the future, as those women really were the high point of the event.
What Needs To Change
After what happened over the weekend, Craig and his crew really only have a couple of options.
- Change The Quintet Formal
- Go Back To The Original Tournament Format
It was admirable that they tried a team tournament format, but having the matches be sub-only with just an 8-minute round wasn’t doable. Especially, when many of the athletes were content just letting the time run out rather than risk getting submitted.
Their other option is to just do the original format since, as we saw with the women’s tournament, it’s still the more entertaining format.
Hopefully, the CJI team will learn from this event and make CJI 3 a better show.
Bobby is martial artist for almost 20 years with a BJJ black belt under Professor Sergio Miranda. He is also a karate black and former combat sports athlete, who loves all things grappling.