After years of attacking ADCC and launching CJI as its biggest rival, Craig Jones has delivered perhaps his most surprising verdict yet: ADCC 2026 proved that the legendary tournament still matters — and, in his view, UFC BJJ hasn’t come close to recreating its magic.

Craig Jones has never been afraid to criticize ADCC.

He attacked its athlete compensation model, publicly feuded with ADCC organizer Mo Jassim and ultimately created the Craig Jones Invitational as a direct challenger to the most prestigious submission grappling tournament in the world.

At one point, Jones even wondered whether CJI had helped kill ADCC.

After watching ADCC 2026 in Kraków, however, Jones appears to have reached a very different conclusion.

ADCC isn’t dead. Far from it.

In a lengthy post-event reaction, Jones praised the chaos, unpredictability and significance of the tournament while making a fascinating comparison with UFC BJJ.

His conclusion was remarkably straightforward:

“It was better than anything UFC BJJ’s done.”

And coming from Craig Jones, that statement carries some weight.

Craig Jones: ADCC 2026 Created More Memorable Moments Than UFC BJJ

Jones didn’t pretend ADCC was perfect.

He criticized the length of the tournament, the huge number of resets and some matches that were anything but entertaining.

But when judging the event by the moments fans will actually remember, he believed ADCC overwhelmingly delivered.

“There are much more exciting moments in a single ADCC weekend. More memorable things happened this weekend.”

The tournament produced breakthrough performances, dramatic matches and several incidents that immediately went viral throughout the grappling community.

Jones repeatedly returned to one idea throughout his recap:

ADCC creates moments.

And those moments create stars.

“It was exciting. Again, I didn’t watch all the matches, but some stars were made.”

That led directly into one of his strongest criticisms of UFC BJJ.

“There are no stars being made in the UFC.”

“No One Knows Who You Are”

UFC BJJ has attempted to professionalize grappling through regular events, contracted athletes and stable compensation.

Jones acknowledged that this has obvious benefits for competitors.

But he questioned whether simply signing with the UFC actually increases a grappler’s profile.

“You get to sit in the crowd and the camera comes over to you and you’re a UFC — not fighter — grappler. No one knows who you are.”

Jones then argued that, with the notable exception of Mikey Musumeci, he hasn’t seen UFC BJJ significantly transform the social following or public profile of its athletes.

For Jones, that matters enormously.

He described attention—or, in his terminology, “clout”—as a form of currency in professional Jiu-Jitsu.

“What we’re after in this game is clout. Specifically the ones that want to make money.”

Jones knows that business model personally.

His own career eventually became about much more than tournament prize money. Instructionals, sponsorships, seminars and his ability to attract attention turned his name into a business.

His warning to the current generation is that a stable contract today doesn’t necessarily guarantee earning power after their competitive careers end.

UFC BJJ Offers Stability. ADCC Offers Something Else.

Jones nevertheless gave UFC BJJ credit for one extremely important development.

“UFC BJJ is paying guys a stable income.”

That is significant in a sport where even many elite competitors have historically struggled to make a consistent living solely from competition.

But Jones then offered a typically Craig Jones analogy about stability not necessarily producing the most exciting relationships.

That, he said, is how he now views ADCC.

“That shit was never perfect. It isn’t perfect. And it’s still better than UFC BJJ.”

The distinction is important.

Jones isn’t arguing that athletes shouldn’t get paid.

Quite the opposite.

The creation of CJI was largely driven by his belief that elite grapplers deserved considerably better compensation.

He specifically pointed out that ADCC athletes are now earning more.

“The athletes are getting paid more money. That’s all I care about really.”

But ADCC 2026 appears to have convinced him that compensation is only one piece of building a meaningful professional sport.

“You Cannot Steal the Tournament’s Clout”

Jones then addressed an argument that has become increasingly relevant as athletes sign with competing organizations.

What happens if a UFC BJJ champion defeats the reigning ADCC champion?

Does that transfer ADCC’s prestige to the UFC BJJ belt?

Jones doesn’t believe so.

In one of the funniest—and harshest—lines of his recap, he said:

“You need to beat the ADCC champion to validate your Power Rangers belt.”

But even beating that champion isn’t equivalent to winning ADCC.

“You cannot steal the tournament’s clout.”

His reasoning is simple: ADCC is not a single superfight.

It is a tournament.

Competitors have to survive multiple elite opponents, contrasting styles, exhaustion, injuries and enormous pressure to eventually become ADCC champion.

Jones knows that experience intimately.

“The tournament is a marathon. If you beat the ADCC champion, those guys go through hell to win that. I go through hell to come second in that tournament.”

He then summarized the distinction:

“You don’t just automatically have an ADCC title because you beat that person.”

“ADCC Felt Real. It Felt Like It Mattered.”

Then came perhaps the most important statement in Jones’ entire video.

“ADCC felt real. It felt like it mattered.”

That sentence gets to the heart of his argument.

A promotion can pay athletes.

It can sign world champions.

It can improve production.

It can create championship belts.

But making audiences emotionally care about the result is something else entirely.

Jones believes UFC BJJ may eventually achieve that—but prestige takes time.

“UFC BJJ might take a decade to matter. It might win, but an ADCC weekend is a crazy special thing.”

And surprisingly, Jones even gave some credit to the man with whom he has had one of grappling’s most public rivalries.

Mo Jassim.

“I could be the first to not appreciate Mo enough for what he did.”

Jones stressed that he created CJI for legitimate reasons, but his position now appears more nuanced.

ADCC needed competition.

ADCC needed to improve athlete compensation.

But that doesn’t mean ADCC needed to disappear.

“Did ADCC Make Stars? Yes. Did CJI Make Stars? Yes. Is UFC BJJ Making Stars? No.”

Jones then distilled his argument into perhaps the most devastating comparison of the video:

“Did it make stars? Yes, it made stars. Did CJI make stars? Yes. Is UFC BJJ making stars? No.”

For Jones, star-making is not an optional extra.

It’s part of what makes a sporting event valuable.

ADCC gives an athlete multiple opportunities in a single weekend to do something memorable. A relatively unknown competitor can defeat a major name and suddenly become one of the most talked-about athletes in the sport.

Jones believes that environment still matters enormously.

“If you want to be a star in this sport, you need to do the biggest events.”

He described ADCC 2026 as a spectacle with something UFC BJJ has struggled to reproduce:

“There was tension in the air.”

Even ADCC’s Athletes Couldn’t Recreate ADCC Somewhere Else

Jones then made an even more interesting argument.

Perhaps UFC BJJ’s problem isn’t simply that it doesn’t currently have enough of the right athletes.

Even if it did, Jones isn’t convinced that would solve the problem.

“Even if you took all the athletes from ADCC and put them in UFC BJJ, it wouldn’t have been as exciting as that.”

That’s a major statement.

Jones is essentially arguing that ADCC itself is part of the attraction.

The tournament structure.

The history.

The pressure.

The prestige.

The crowd.

The possibility of an upset.

The knowledge that a performance can permanently alter someone’s standing within Jiu-Jitsu history.

Those elements cannot simply be transferred with an athlete contract.

“You Can’t Kill Something With That Much Legacy”

Jones admitted that many people believed CJI might have dealt a fatal blow to ADCC.

He even acknowledged thinking that himself.

ADCC 2026 changed his mind.

“ADCC was special. It was a significant event. It is ADCC.”

Then came one of the defining statements of his entire recap:

“You can’t kill something with that much legacy, that much prestige, and that much clout on offer.”

That’s perhaps the biggest lesson Jones took from Kraków.

Money matters.

Athlete compensation matters.

Rules matter.

Production matters.

But legacy has value too.

ADCC has decades of it.

And you cannot instantly manufacture decades of emotional investment by launching a new championship belt.

“You’re Being Paid in Legacy. You’re Being Paid in Moments.”

Toward the end of his recap, Jones’ argument became almost philosophical.

Professional athletes obviously need financial compensation.

But Jones believes competitors at events such as ADCC receive another type of value—one that can ultimately influence their careers for years.

“What you just saw this weekend matters, and it matters in a way you cannot even define clearly.”

He then offered perhaps the most interesting phrase of the entire discussion:

“I think you’re being paid in legacy.”

And immediately followed it with:

“You’re being paid in moments.”

That doesn’t mean athletes should compete for exposure instead of money.

Jones has spent years arguing the exact opposite.

Rather, his point appears to be that the biggest sporting events provide both immediate and long-term value.

A memorable performance can create an audience.

An audience can create sponsorships.

It can sell instructionals.

It can fill seminars.

And unlike a competition paycheck, that value can continue long after an athlete stops competing.

Jones used himself as evidence.

“I’ve made more money off of Jiu-Jitsu instructionals and sponsorships just by being who I am and what I post on social media.”

Jones Doesn’t Want ADCC to Disappear

Perhaps the most surprising admission was also one of the simplest:

“I don’t want ADCC to cease to exist.”

Jones believes rivalry between organizations is healthy.

CJI challenged ADCC.

ADCC responded.

UFC BJJ is now challenging both.

And that competition could ultimately leave athletes in a much stronger position than they were several years ago.

Jones also praised aspects of UFC BJJ’s format, including rounds and the competition perimeter, suggesting ADCC itself could learn from those ideas.

His criticism isn’t that UFC BJJ has no potential.

It’s that it hasn’t yet created the emotional significance ADCC demonstrated in Kraków.

“UFC BJJ Is Not Doing That”

Jones repeatedly returned to competitors who created memorable moments through major tournament performances.

That, he believes, is how sporting history gets created.

“He created moments out there. You know, unforgettable moments. UFC BJJ is not doing that.”

That represents the fundamental challenge facing UFC BJJ.

Signing famous grapplers isn’t enough.

Paying them isn’t enough.

Putting a UFC logo behind them isn’t enough.

Fans have to care.

Athletes have to desperately want the title.

And winning it has to mean something beyond receiving another paycheck.

“God Bless ADCC. That Sh*t Was Sick.”

By the end of the video, Jones’ transformation was complete.

The man who created ADCC’s biggest rival found himself openly praising the tournament.

“God bless ADCC. That shit was sick.”

He then issued a challenge to its newest competitor:

“UFC BJJ, pick up your game.”

And finally came the line that summarizes the entire video:

“I thought I killed ADCC. ADCC ain’t dead.”

But Jones wasn’t finished.

He suggested that if Mo Jassim returns to organize ADCC in Brazil in 2028, the event could once again become something virtually every elite grappler wants to be part of.

And then he made a statement that would have sounded almost impossible during the height of the CJI vs. ADCC war:

“If Mo does ADCC 2028, I will compete in it.”

Craig Jones spent years trying to force ADCC to change.

ADCC 2026 appears to have changed something in Craig Jones too.

His conclusion is not that ADCC is perfect.

It’s that after all the criticism, competition, money and politics surrounding professional grappling, Kraków reminded him of something much simpler:

ADCC still feels like it matters.

And for a sport trying to figure out its professional future, that might be worth more than anyone realized.

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