The Craig Jones Invitational 2 (CJI 2), held from August 30 to 31, 2025, at the Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas, has officially redefined the financial landscape of professional grappling. With an unprecedented $1 million team prize and a groundbreaking $100,000 purse awarded in the women’s division, the event shattered expectations and established a new benchmark for athlete compensation in a sport long considered a niche.
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Launched as a direct alternative to traditional tournaments like the ADCC, CJI 2 was spearheaded by grappling star Craig Jones, whose stated mission was to put athletes first—financially and structurally. He followed through by organizing a format that combined spectacle, elite-level talent, and prize equity, producing not only a competitive success but a cultural one. The team event brought together eight squads from around the world, each consisting of five top-tier grapplers. These teams competed in a Quintet-style elimination format where grapplers from each team faced off in consecutive rounds until one squad emerged victorious. The $1 million purse was divided among the winning team members, an offer that dwarfed previous payouts in the sport and instantly set a new industry ceiling.
The women’s bracket, though smaller in size, was equally monumental in impact. Featuring four elite female grapplers in a single-elimination format, the tournament culminated in a $100,000 winner-take-all prize—by far the largest purse ever offered in women’s professional grappling. In a sport where female athletes have often been sidelined or underpaid, this move sent a powerful message about parity and potential. The significance wasn’t lost on athletes or fans, many of whom flooded social media with praise and calls for other promotions to follow suit.
Beyond the numbers, CJI 2 proved to be a strategic success in terms of reach and engagement. The entire event was streamed for free on YouTube, drawing impressive live viewership and offering widespread access to fans who might not otherwise tune into traditional pay-per-view grappling events. The decision to eliminate a paywall not only enhanced visibility but fueled social media buzz, turning clips, highlights, and interviews into viral moments that extended the event’s digital footprint far beyond the grappling community. While official viewership statistics have yet to be released, anecdotal engagement metrics point to one of the most watched and talked-about grappling events in recent history.
Financially, the long-term sustainability of the model is still being assessed. Craig Jones himself acknowledged prior to the event that they were still thousands of tickets short of the breakeven point. Yet the strategy was clear: invest heavily now, create a premium product, and use digital and community momentum to build toward profitability in future editions. For many athletes, that commitment was more than enough to justify their participation—and their faith in a more equitable future for the sport.
What CJI 2 achieved is more than just a headline-grabbing payout. It demonstrated that with bold vision, strategic media deployment, and athlete-centered planning, grappling can become a commercially viable sport with global appeal. It also offered a model that could influence other combat sports stuck in outdated compensation structures. Promoters, sponsors, and streaming services would do well to study how CJI 2 succeeded in rallying both elite athletes and online communities around a premium product that felt disruptive, fresh, and deeply principled.
In many ways, CJI 2 was a proof of concept—an experiment in whether a sport often relegated to the sidelines could step into the spotlight through bold financial incentives and innovative presentation. By all measures—financial, cultural, and digital—it did just that. If future events can build on this momentum, professional grappling may finally have found its way into the upper echelon of global combat sports.