What this covers
Craig Jones sits with Lex Fridman to argue that grappling has been distributing its product wrong—locked behind paywalls while the sport stagnates—and that his CJI tournament demonstrates a better path: free broadcasts that build mass audience, transparent viewership data that shifts negotiating power to athletes, and direct show money paid transparently rather than buried in venue budgets. The conversation ranges across grappling technique, tournament design, athlete economics, and the geopolitics of Ukraine's drone warfare, with Jones drawing parallels between how athletes are compensated and how soldiers fund their own equipment through social media.
On the grappling side, Jones articulates core principles of his competitive philosophy: the Panic-Fatigue Loop that governs beginner retention and injury prevention, the training environment problems that force elite practitioners into private gyms, and how Reverse Engineering tape study generates unexpected positions that destabilize opponents. He proposes integrating folk-style wrestling with submissions to create a more action-oriented format, and defends his tournament's Incentive Design—timed rounds, FPV drone-style 10-point scoring, stalling penalties—as solutions to the guard-stall problem that plagues modern jiu-jitsu competition. He also makes a pointed claim about Dagestani grapplers, arguing their grinding, pressure-based approach excels in MMA wrestling but falters against submission specialists who can negate forward pressure from the back.
The economic argument centers on Competitive Pressure and Information Asymmetry as Leverage: ADCC raised women's prize money only after CJI signed Ffion Davies for a super fight, proving that rival events force incumbents to improve pay. Jones documents that despite growing streaming revenue since 2017, ADCC athlete compensation has flatlined while venue costs exploded from roughly $200,000 to $2 million—a misallocation he traces partly to how streaming platforms withhold viewership data, keeping athletes blind to their own drawing power. He contrasts this with a Free Content Growth Model borrowed from stand-up comedy: build audience first, monetize later. The conversation also touches on broader conflicts—the Cost Asymmetry Warfare of Ukraine's $300-500 drones destroying $3 million tanks, the emergence of Defensive Arms Race dynamics in drone technology, and how Motivated Reasoning leads people to dismiss superior athletes as chemically enhanced rather than genetically gifted.
Jones argues that grappling should be grown like modern comedy—given away free to build a mass audience—and that his CJI tournament proves athletes should be paid directly and transparently rather than 'paid in exposure' behind a paywall.
- ADCC athlete pay never rose despite the sport's growth, while venue spending ballooned
- Free distribution on YouTube/X/Meta plus visible view counts shifts leverage to athletes
- Round structure and the alley rule set are designed to incentivize finishes and reduce stalling
Athletes deserve transparent metrics and fair direct payment rather than hosting platforms withholding data and taking negotiable cuts.
- Streaming providers withhold viewer numbers because that data is leverage; by broadcasting CJI free and giving every athlete the same view-count metrics, athletes can prove their drawing power and use it in their own sponsorship negotiations, shifting power from the host to the athlete.
“They are making the right business decision by not providing streamer numbers because that's leverage that those people can use against the streaming provider.”
- Once CJI signed reigning champion Ffion Davies for a superfight, ADCC immediately raised its women's division prize money to equal the men's (from a traditionally lower ~$6,000), illustrating how competitive pressure from a rival event forces incumbents to improve athlete compensation.
“As soon as we had Ffion Davies, the reigning champion, come across to do a super fight with us, bang, ADCC raised the prize money of the women's division to equal the men's.”
- A Brazilian manager taking a 20% cut would use CJI invitations as leverage—telling ADCC he could keep his athletes there in exchange for higher show money, from which he greases his own 20%—giving him a vested interest in steering athletes to events where show money is negotiable rather than CJI's flat, non-negotiable payout.
“I would invite an athlete to CJI, he would go to the other organization and he would say to them, 'Hey, what sort of deal could you give me to keep this guy?'... he can negotiate show money and he can basically take 20% of that for himself.”
- Despite the audience and streaming revenue for ADCC growing considerably since 2017, athlete payment has never increased—losing in the final pays only about $6,000 while the venue cost jumped from roughly $200,000 (Thomas & Mack) to ~$2 million (T-Mobile), which Jones argues reflects misallocation rather than inability to pay athletes more.
“the payment for ADCC has never gone up despite, again, the growth of it.”
- CJI uses timed rounds and an MMA-style 10-point-must scoring system, with hard stalling penalties and a winner-takes-all million-dollar prize, specifically to incentivize action and finishes—preventing the common dynamic where a competitor takes a dominant position early and stalls to ride out a points lead.
“Why I want to do that is to incentivize action. We're going to incentivize action through penalizing people”
- Scheduling CJI the same weekend as ADCC was largely a marketing ploy framed as forcing fans to choose, when in fact the events run on different days/times (CJI Friday-Saturday starting late, ADCC Saturday-Sunday) so fans can watch both; the head-to-head feud was manufactured to generate attention.
“ultimately it was a big marketing ploy to go head-to-head pretending like we're making the fans choose but the fans will be able to watch both events.”
- Jones set a wager for his superfight against Gabi Garcia: if she wins, he'll personally give her a million dollars; if he foot-locks her, they'll collaborate on an OnlyFans sex tape.
“If she wins, I'll personally give her a million dollars. If I can footlock her, we're going to collaborate together in an OnlyFans sex tape.”
Remaining calm and relaxed under pressure is the foundational skill distinguishing elite grapplers from panicked competitors.
- The core skill in jiu-jitsu, for both beginners and elite competitors, is remaining calm in bad positions rather than panicking; panic causes fatigue (in guard retention and escapes) and explosive movement from stuck positions causes injuries, so staying relaxed both preserves longevity and reflects the ultimate confidence that an opponent cannot submit you.
“if you can remain calm in bad positions, that is a skill. That's your confidence not in yourself, but that the other guy's incapable of submitting you. That's the ultimate confidence.”
- When an overly aggressive training partner expects resistance, not providing it (rather than meeting pressure with pressure, which tires you) shocks and slows their pace—but if you feel a genuine threat of injury, you should immediately rip a submission as a defensive response.
“If I meet pressure with pressure, I get tired. But if I don't provide resistance where they think there should be resistance now it slows their pace down. They get shocked a bit.”
Jiu-jitsu grows through free accessible exciting content that builds audience before paywalling, not through competition alone.
- Jiu-jitsu will not grow through competition (which only a small minority of practitioners do), but by making exciting content freely accessible like comedians who release specials for free to build an audience; only after the audience is built should content go behind a paywall.
“I think you grow the sport like comedians do these days. Guys like Mark Normand will release a special for free, Andrew Schulz did it first, released a special for free”
- Jones's innovative game comes from studying tape and reverse-engineering moves to create positions opponents don't understand—because an unexpected position induces panic—and this is driven both by the financial motivation of selling instructionals and by the artistic enjoyment of beating people in creative, unexpected ways.
“If you can hit moves that no one else knows how to do, you can sell those instructions.”
- Effective trolling requires targeting someone worthy—a figure with a profile large enough that it doesn't look like punching down—and Australian banter culture (constant mutual ribbing where the loser is whoever gets genuinely upset) gives Jones an advantage over Americans who take themselves too seriously.
“they have to be worthy of being attacked... I want to battle someone with a profile large enough that it doesn't look like you're just”
- Jones is attracted to adventure rather than risk itself, and won't let risk get in the way—though he acknowledges the best adventures often involve the most risk.
“I'm more about the adventure, but I will not let the risk get in the waiver.”
- Anthony Bourdain's instructive skill was authentically showing both the good and bad of a place in a way that was tasteful and respected by locals—a hard balance, since a purely positive travel show is easy but an honest one risks offending locals who resent a foreigner critiquing their culture.
“what was incredible about Bourdain is he could talk about both the good and bad of places and he would do it in such a way that it was tasteful and was respected by the locals.”
Training must match individual athlete tendencies and opponent profiles, not follow uniform volume prescriptions.
- Optimal training volume and intensity are individual: some athletes (like Nicky Rod) thrive on huge volume while others (like Nick Ryan) train too technically and get rattled by competition pressure, so a good coach must tailor work to what each person needs based on their tendencies and opponent.
“I think different people require different things. When Nicky Rod is breaking the spine of a 37-year-old father... it might be time for him to train in a more technical manner. So, it's like you've got to cater it to what they need.”
- Once an athlete reaches any level of notoriety, training partners at open gyms come to 'kill'—treating every roll as a chance to test themselves—so famous practitioners are far safer training privately with three or four trusted partners, since real training depends on trust and safe rounds.
“if you've reached any level of notoriety, whether it's in the sport or just as a celebrity, you're better off to just have three, four trusted training partners and train privately.”
- Jones performs better when relaxed and accepting of the result—some of his best performances came on short notice, sick, or after disrupted camps—because the stress of long preparation for a high-stakes event degrades sleep and increases tension, whereas a 'wing it' mindset removes that psychological burden.
“some of the best performances I've had, I've been called up last minute or I've been sick or my camp's been horrible. And for me, personally, I've gone in there and thought, 'Oh, relax.'”
- Accusing athletes of steroid use without data is often a psychological self-defense mechanism—it's easier to attribute someone's superiority to drugs than to accept their genetics are far superior—which is corrosive because some people are simply genetically gifted and clean, and they deserve to be celebrated rather than smeared.
“It's a self-defense mechanism. You'd rather assume that that guy was on steroids than his genetics are so far superior to yours. You're like, 'Nah, it must be steroids.'”
Different grappling systems favor different styles: Dagestani grinding pressure excels in MMA but fails against submissions and leg locks from back control.
- Dagestani fighters excel in MMA and wrestling because their training is a 'fight to the death' where they never concede an inch, which suits cage wrestling and ground-and-pound; but this grinding approach translates poorly to submission grappling, where pulling guard and submitting from the back can negate forward pressure and leg locks can trap overly aggressive grinders.
“those guys are just like, they just love it. It's just about, it's how they train. It's a fight to the death... They don't want to concede an inch ever.”
- The most exciting evolution of grappling would be integrating folk-style wrestling with submissions from standing, governed by rules that reward always fighting to get on top (via sweep or submission) and avoiding being pinned, encouraging offensive standing engagement that looks more like fighting than guard play.
“it'll just be the integration of wrestling into Jiu-Jitsu. I think that would be the most exciting way the sport could progress. It's basically folk style wrestling, but an integration of submissions from the standing position too.”
- The alley's angled walls solve grappling's annoying and exploitable 'reset' problem (where referees stop and recreate positions near the edge, sometimes biasing outcomes) by making it a disadvantage to be pushed against the wall, while avoiding the slow stagnation of cage wrestling and the fall-off-injury risk of an elevated platform.
“The angled wall mitigates that and it mitigates it in such a way that it's a disadvantage to be pushed up against the angled wall. You're very easily taken down against the angled wall.”
Hard work, self-education, and mental resilience from modest beginnings can produce world-class athletes regardless of starting late or training location.
- Volkanovski exemplifies what is achievable through hard work and self-education from an isolated place: starting late from a rugby background and training at a small beachside gym on puzzle mats, he became arguably the best featherweight ever, defined by insane cardio workouts and sheer mental willpower through brutal weight cuts.
“It's insane to me that he's still considered probably the pound for pound best featherweight ever in my opinion. And he's basically come across and started late from a rugby background.”
- Jiu-jitsu functions as a global community and equalizer that grants access across ethnic, religious, and wealth backgrounds—exemplified by Sheikh Tahnoun training anonymously at a simple American gym and cleaning mats like anyone else—because skill and mutual respect on the mats transcend external status.
“People around the world really has no ethnic background, religious background, even level of wealth, as cheesy as it sounds, it's a good equalizer on the mats”
Ukraine's asymmetric warfare and soldiers defending home soil embody resourcefulness, sacrifice, and motivations distant from foreign observers.
- Soldiers may experience battle fatigue, but when something happens to civilians—especially children, like the bombed Kyiv children's hospital—it reinvigorates the energy to fight for as long as necessary, a dynamic that occurs on both sides of the war.
“They might have battle fatigue but, when something happens to civilians, especially kids, on your side, reinvigorates the energy to fight for as long as necessary.”
- In the Ukraine war, a roughly $300-500 FPV drone (often 3D-printed carbon fiber, fitted with frag, mines, or incendiary payloads) can destroy a ~$3 million Russian tank, making Ukraine a world leader in budget drone warfare and dramatically inverting the cost ratio of modern combat.
“what's mind-blowing to me is you could have a $3 million Russian tank that could be destroyed by a $300 drone.”
- While the US supplies weapons (including old Soviet arms like the RPG) to Ukraine, individual soldiers must pay for their own basic quality equipment—which can be the difference between surviving winter or summer—and they fund this by growing social media profiles to attract donations, blending fundraising with psychological warfare.
“in terms of the basic soldiers equipment, if they want good quality stuff, that might be the difference between them surviving the winter or the summer just in the extreme temperature range. They have to pay for that all themselves.”
- Soldiers defending their own homeland against an invader on their defined borders feel a sense of obligation that people from countries like Australia or the US—which haven't experienced ground invasion in recent history—cannot truly imagine, making the everyday conscripts and volunteers like his friend Roman fundamentally relatable rather than a separate class of 'military' people.
“Their responsibility to protect their homeland and their family, it's just something you can't imagine. But also after having spent time with them, you can see why they feel such a strong sense of obligation”