Craig Jones is one of the most prevalent characters in the world of submission grappling and Garry Tonon has weighed in on some of the discourse around Jones' recent efforts as both a competitor and promoter. Tonon has historically been close to Gordon Ryan over the years and the former has some opinions on if Craig Jones' behaviour is largely authentic or if it's to generate headlines and get attention, Tonon said,
"Yeah, I don't really know enough. I don't follow a ton of stuff that Craig [Jones does]. I obviously hear about certain things, like I don't follow it a ton. It definitely rubbed me the wrong way when CJI [Craig Jones Invitational] initially, you know, started doing whatever they were doing because I felt as though it was a lot less about creating a new organization and a lot more about trying to burn an organization that had already existed."
"I felt like the express goal was destroy this other thing that otherwise had been, you know, the foundation of the no gi grappling community for a long time. It was hard for me to be in any way on board with that kind of mentality because, you know, I mean f**k, ADCC has basically been a charity organization for grappling for over a decade, maybe possibly two decades."
"Because there was no money to be made in the sport and they were giving out money, you know, substantially larger prizes than any; like you couldn't fight; in order to win $1,000 in jiu-jitsu, first of all, there was very few opportunities to do it. But in order to do it, I mean, you had to win like an absolute division in like a Grappler's Quest or something like that and fight like a bunch of the best guys, you know, in at least a 16-man bracket."
"That was to win like a thousand bucks and nobody was paying for your travel. Nobody was paying any of your expenses. So like basically you probably; if you had to travel from anywhere, you weren't; you wouldn't make any money. You know and that's like what the grappling scene was professionally for a really long time."
"And you know, could you make the argument that ADCC at this stage of the game, you know, could maybe make some adjustments as far as like pay, pay scheme, and how they do things? Yeah, you could make that argument and I kind of get it, you know. But man, they've been a pretty big mainstay in the community that has been giving back to that community for, you know, in terms of at least monetarily and prestige-wise for a very long time."
"And it just didn't feel right to go full scorch earth on them and have that be the express goal. So, you know, that rubbed me the wrong way. So, because of that, I really haven't been; it pushed me away from the whole [CJI] concept. You know, obviously we all; I have a bias as well because of what happened with the team split between those guys, but that's really the biggest complaint that I have is it felt a lot more like taking down and destroying people that have done generally good things than it did have to do with, hey, I'm going to start this new organization that's going to be great for professional grappling."
"That was my biggest grievance really, more than anything else. I don't really, like I said, follow too much of like the day-to-day drama stuff. I do know that supposedly he's leaving B team and now they're kind of doing their own thing. Like I don't know if they're going to rebrand as a different team or what, but that's the only other thing that I've really heard."
"I know they're doing; our team is has a team in CJI, the next one, or whatever the case may be. They're doing like a teams thing. So like I'm peripherally, you know, kind of aware. But yeah, I don't know. Like you said, there's a lot of stuff that's done for attention and drama and clicks and things like that. He's very good at that, at doing that sort of thing, and I think that's a lot of; maybe the motivation behind it but I can only really speculate. But yeah, man, I don't know. I think having diversity in professional grappling is always a good thing."
Craig Jones, athletic exclusivity, and what could uplift the submission grappliong scene
As the prolific submission grappler further expounded upon his thoughts regarding Craig Jones, promotional exclusivity for athletes, and what could best serve the future growth of the sport, Tonon continued,
"I've never been huge on like one organization just signing people's lives away and not having them be able to; I feel like it prevents, you know, all the matches that people want to see and stuff like that. Because it's not on the level that MMA is where you can really; where an organization can really afford to, you know, support; like any specific organization can really afford to just support, you know, an entire stable of athletes, you know. They can do it for like a few of them, you know, and for those few, I think it's probably great, right?"
"Like if you got like; so, for example, like the Ruotolos at ONE, for example, right? Like I'm sure they're paid great, you know? I'm sure that they're having a great time. I'm sure that like it's a good decision for them to generally like be basically mostly competing there, you know. But it would be really difficult for ONE, logistically speaking, to do that with for example, every; to do that with like 10 of the best athletes or let's not not even say 10 because really you would need like a top 15, right?"
"So like 15 of the best athletes in every single weight division, you're paying them enough for them to only participate and not just paying them enough, but also have enough opportunity for them to compete only in that organization. Like that would be very difficult to do, you know, like without having a whole separate grappling organization, you know, if you're going to have the events on the same cards as MMA fighters and kickboxers. Like I said, like you just can't do all of those things at once."
"So, you know, I like the idea of different organizations popping up and giving athletes different opportunities and stuff like that, but I don't know if they necessarily need to. It doesn't necessarily need to be a zero-sum game is kind of what I'm saying. I don't really see; I don't think that's helpful for anybody really. Like for it to be a zero sum; for people to present it as a zero sum game, you know? It's like CJI didn't need to be on like the same weekend as ADCC, you know, like that was crazy."
"There's just no reason for that. It's like, okay, sure, it's a publicity stunt, but you basically made it so that grapplers couldn't get both opportunities. They were going to only be able to participate in one and fans were probably going to have a tough time. Like I guess you could have gone back and forth a little bit because there was some overlap and some isolation. But it's still like, you know, same thing. Like people probably would have liked to watch both of those things live."
"I just don't; I remember even coming up early on in the professional grappling scene and seeing like; I'd see like a NAGA or Grappler's Quest or something like that and it would be on like the same; it would be like on the same weekend or something like that as some major tournament in IBJJF or something like that. There would be like a big; and I'd be like, well, why are these two things happening on the same weekend? Like, it just doesn't need to be the case."
"Like, both of these things; or you'd have like, maybe it wouldn't necessarily be a major IBJJF. Maybe it'd be like a Grappler's Quest or a NAGA and like they would be in like this, like a similar area on the same weekend. And it's like, well, guys, like could have just f***ing staggered this s**t and like probably both companies would have made money. Like [laughs], it just wasn't necessary to pit both of them against each other."
"I'm sure sometimes it was like an accidental, you know, circumstantial thing. But that's the kind of thing that I'm talking about. Like I don't; I think that there's so much room for growth in this industry and in this sport that like there really is a place for a lot of these organizations. Especially when they're all doing like new and unique things with like different rule sets and different types of promotions. Like a Fight to Win is vastly different than ADCC and vastly different from CJI and like all these things."
"Like they all have their own little niche and I think they should just focus on building whatever it is that they're building instead of just tearing down. You don't need to tear down anybody else in order to build something cool, you know, with any of these organizations, you know. So, I don't know, man. I'm very pro, you know, multiple organizations, but I don't really like the approach. So yeah, that's kind of my take."