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Craig Jones

Appearances

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

1004.072

So it was like a bit of an all-encompassing relationship for the Kazakh people. But we basically abandoned ship. It was proven too difficult to film some things, some sensitive subjects over there. And I said, where should we go next? And I just looked at the map and I was like, we're near Ukraine.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

1019.429

Ukraine was a place that I'd been offered to teach a jiu-jitsu seminar prior to, I guess, the war commencing, the full-scale war commencing. And we're looking for a bit of adventure, something interesting to film, something to follow in the news. Obviously, very controversial in the news. People have very strong opinions. And I was like, let's go over there. Let's throw a charity event.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

1038.813

Let's do something. Let's train with the people and really... Experience of ourselves.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

1042.735

So we set up the seminar turned out to be the biggest seminar for jiu-jitsu in Ukraine history Which is wild considering obviously they are at war but everyone came together to support it and One of the soldiers there one of my friends that good friend now who's on the front line He made a comment on there and he said hey like this is a seminar to donate profits to the soldiers But we're on the front line

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

1068.444

And I was like, you know what? I'll come to you. And he's like, listen, I can't promise you'll survive, but I'll promise you'll have a good time. And I said, that's all I needed to hear. So we connected and my friend Roman, we went really, really close. I think we were at the closest point, seven kilometers from the front line.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

1087.739

Obviously very surreal experience to be over there, seeing basically how the battles fought with all drones. How long ago was this? I think it would have been March or April. So we went there, we went basically spent two nights up on the front line, went back to Kiev and that was it for that trip.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

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In terms of crazy stuff that happens, obviously just the people living, like you download the air defense tracker. So at any time there could be an air siren going off, an air alert on your phone. Could be like drones heading your way, planes are in the air, missiles flying. And then those missiles will change direction and stuff.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

1125.097

So the air alert, you don't know if it's heading a different direction, but they just sort of warn everyone. So you live under a constant state. of fear, basically. And then on that first trip, the heaviest moment was I was going downstairs in the hotel to work out, which is honestly a rare thing these days, doing something healthy with myself. You're working out.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

1144.176

Getting in the gym, pumping some iron. And this was divine intervention that a hypersonic missile was shot down by the Patriot Defense System just like five minutes from the hotel. So the whole hotel and the attached gym just shook like crazy. And Some people started freaking out.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

1161.549

Most people went to leave to go outside, which I don't think is recommended, but you want to see what's going on out there. This was in Kiev. This was in Kiev. So it got shot down, and then some of the local troops actually took me to the site of where just part of the missile had landed in the ground and left this huge sort of...

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

1178.92

indentation that already cleared up most of the, um, I guess shrapnel from the missile. I don't know if I should, or if I was legally allowed to do this, but I took some of that missile back home with me. I don't know where I left it actually, but I thought maybe that would raise some alarm bells and airport scans, but I took, I took it regardless.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

1197.612

And that was basically the craziest thing that happened on that first trip.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

1209.803

And so that's protecting Kiev. That's protecting Kiev, yeah. That was at the time where U.S. hadn't voted to, I guess, keep funding Kiev. The weapons over there. So it was kind of a tense moment because I think, I don't know, everyone was thinking like, when do those air defense missiles run out? So that was a heavy moment for me thinking, look at what it shot out the sky.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

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Like, imagine if that didn't, they didn't have that. But we, yeah, that was probably the most surreal moment. But Kyiv largely, life goes on most of the time as per normal. I was faced with crazy messages and comments, even just posting that video. Like I'm getting paid by Ukraine and stuff. And it's just like, people just don't understand that like life has to go on.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

1253.681

Like Kyiv's here, the front lines far away. Like the cities have to largely try to operate as normal or whatever. Just life will not go on in those villages and cities.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

1281.378

Yeah, it's some bullet moves out there. I love seeing people that just crazy stuff's going on from the war and they don't even react to it. They don't go to the bomb shelter. It's like a baller move. Like I'm not gonna change my lifestyle. Actually on that first trip as well, something else that I probably shouldn't have been allowed to do was go to Chernobyl. Yeah.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

1298.129

So Chernobyl, I believe troops came through Belarus and there was some fighting going on in Chernobyl. Mm-hmm . I think the whole world got concerned at that point, if any sort of radiation leaked, but Chernobyl as it stands, the troops back down and it's completely covered in mines. Very, very difficult to go, to go to Chernobyl.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

1318.12

Basically as a tourist or as like a, I guess a idiot like myself should really probably not be allowed in a place like that. But we were able to get there. We passed like four security checkpoints. It took two attempts. First time we tried to go in there was with a special forces guy. We cleared two security gates. Then they stopped us and basically threatened us with arrest. Rightfully so.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

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Really have no business going to Chernobyl. We made a connection. I won't say who this connection was, but he had heard about what I had done with a charity event and opened some doors for us to be able to go to Chernobyl. We got to see Chernobyl. We had some filming restrictions there just because it was a crazy military conflict at one point. We got to actually see Chernobyl.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

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Chernobyl has always been a dream of mine to see because it's just such an interesting place. And to see it under these conditions, very, very strange. Yeah, what was that like? So there's no civilians there now. It's just completely empty. I guess it's kind of like the fantasy you have.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

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I imagine people going on tours of Chernobyl back in the tourist days when it was a tourist spot and it would be busy, full of tourists. We got basically a private tour, so we got to really feel... that abandoned sort of vibes. I guess I was interested in it from playing Call of Duty and then. Right. Chernobyl series, all the documentaries and stuff are very, very strange place to go visit.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

1419.79

And that could continually kill people. I don't think it'll be a tourist spot for a very long time because if you were thinking about areas to demine when the conflict ends, an area where if you accidentally trigger a mine could cause a radiation leak, it's probably going to be very low on the list. So tourism for Chernobyl, who knows how long until that returns.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

1451.97

Maybe they were hoping I did step on a mine. Maybe my jokes didn't go too well there.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

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He was trying to get rid of you. Putin, yeah. Now, I don't know. I mean, we felt pretty safe when we were there. There was an air alert went off. They were kind of more concerned with... Me dying just for the PR side of things. It's like Australian tourists.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

1485.025

Oh, yeah, the rocket launcher. I shot a rocket launcher with the troops on the first trip. But the second trip I went back to, which was only maybe –

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

1492.412

four to five weeks ago yeah this time we went to some crazier spots so we went to odessa which has been hit a ton i really enjoyed the video of uh old man stretching and like exercising on the yeah what is that local local custom well odessa people are known historically to be wild that was wild it was abrasive to the eyes but i appreciated it especially a middle-aged man in underwear with a beer belly doing a sun dance at dusk that would frighten many people

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

1522.758

Yeah, yeah, yeah. The battleship would turn around. Yeah, so where else? sort of really heavy in terms of action, we could go to curse on and he's like, oh, personally escort you to curse on. And I was just like, well, here we have an invitation for adventure. I think it's a great idea to go. And I thought, you know what?

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

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I'll completely lie to my cameraman and tell him it's a safe trip to go on so that he can pass that information onto his fiance.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

1564.149

And she won't have any concerns. Yes. So we basically take this huge journey all the way down to Curzon. We switch at a city outside. I can't remember the name, but we had to switch to sort of armored vehicles. And I remember the guy that picked us up there said, hey, give me a phone number for someone to call to recover your bodies. And he said that in a joking way, but I think he was serious.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

1586.227

But I said, just leave it, you know? I'm not, I don't think they need, I don't think we much left probably if we get hit over there, but we go basically into Curzon. I think Curzon's population used to be like 250,000. Now it's like basically all military down to 50,000. So we went into the police, basically stationed in the bunker underneath the top of the building was destroyed.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

1607.458

And then one of the local guys just took us on a city tour, which again, we had some filming restrictions because obviously anytime something's hit, it's

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

1617.216

guess the other side wants to be able to see what damage has been done so if you take any footage of recently destroyed buildings that's going to help them recalibrate and target the next shot so curse on being so heavily hit it's basically within range of every single thing russia has every form of weapon drones before we took the tour he put some drone blocking things on top of the car

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

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which didn't look reassuring. He also took a helmet out the back of the car, which I thought he was going to give to me, but he just threw it in the back of the pickup truck and said, oh, you won't need this. You'll be dead anyway. And I was like, oh, I've made a great life decision with this little Curzon tour.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

1656.946

But then we took a tour of the city and Curzon used to be kind of like a beautiful place. beach city by the Dnipro River. But basically, it's just the river that separates Russia from, well, I guess the Russian land they've taken from Kherson. So Kherson's split across that river, and there's just Russians on the other side of the river and Ukrainians on this side. So very, very dangerous spot.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

1681.166

Kharkiv makes a lot of press because of the long-range missiles that hit, but Kherson's just being hit all the time. So we took this tour. We went along the river. We went to within one kilometer of the front line. So that was the closest we got. After this point, we heard artillery strike. And because you're in an armored vehicle, it sounds further away than it is.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

1705.66

Obviously, the sound doesn't get in. So I thought it sounded far away. We could see some smoke that actually appeared close in the distance. The guy driving us took us to a point where a large building was blocking us from, I guess, the angle at which the missile would have came from. And I thought everything was cool. I thought it must have been off in the distance.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

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And then we heard two more strikes.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

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hit very very close they sounded really loud and then i think um he's radioing to see if everything's safe if we can leave this point and then we basically race back but we i started to realize we're in danger at any point where he really sped the car up or sort of took sort of evasive movements in the car but we got out of there and i think i had someone translate it later and basically yeah he was checking to see if the roads were clear for us to leave ultimately it ended up being

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

1754.247

Someone died and a few people were injured from that blast, which was less than half a kilometer from us. And basically they were radioing saying, end the tour, come back to the police station.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

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Yeah, and it's constant all the time. Yeah, and you hear that noise and you're like, is that coming or going? Very concerning. Right. You don't know. Yeah. You don't know. And just like that, it could be you. You're gone. Last time the village we went to, basically, it was the day we left. So we stayed there overnight. The day we left, it just started getting...

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

1798.522

extremely shelled and the soldier we were with just took a selfie video of us and basically the location we were in just hearing just artillery strike after artillery strike just being like oh you guys left and the fun began so they they take it in good spirit i was trying to use their energy to reassure myself but i guess when they see it every day They're kind of more adjusted to it.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

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They're not freaking out every time something crazy like that goes on.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

1832.068

Yeah. The guys are always laughing and joking. They were laughing and joking at me quite a bit, holding weapons, trying to shoot weapons and stuff. They got a lot of enjoyment out of me shooting the RPG. Yeah.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

1848.621

They helped me out, though, in my marketing campaign for the tournament. We were able to secure a Lada, classic Soviet Union car. We towed it. We painted it with the logos of the other event, the ADCC. Yeah. And we got to shoot some RPGs at it. Yeah. Great experience. Great fun.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

1874.014

It was a bold move. Luckily, they let me get away with posting it. But when we were there, it was basically at a shooting range, and we cleared them out for a while. So we'd blown up the car. We'd set it on fire. We'd done all this sort of stuff. I remember we were trying to blow it up. It wasn't quite hitting. One of the missiles was lodged in under the car, so it was kind of risky.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

1891.947

That could have gone off at any moment. But we needed to get it to ignite. We needed to get a shot where it was on fire. The logo of the enemy tournament was basically on fire. So we poured gasoline on it. We shot the gasoline tank. That didn't work. That must be a movie trick or something. And then we decided we'd light on fire a rag and just throw it into the blowing out back window.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

1914.402

So I'm with this guy, special forces guy, and we throw the rag in the back. Like soaked in gasoline rag? Yeah. And we start running. And he's like, stop, stop. He's like, it didn't go off. So we're sitting there quite close to the car, lighting it, trying to light more as we walk back to the car. And then we just hear the car ignite. And he's like, run, run, run.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

1934.361

So we came quite close to death already at that point. But we wanted to get the shot with some photos in front of the burning logos. But we told the guys at the shooting range to basically give us 10 minutes or so. So we could take the photos. I don't know if they didn't wait the full 10 minutes or if we took too long, but they started firing at the targets anyway.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

1956.24

And then the ricochets were flying very, very close to us over our head. One landed right by my leg. We're like, shit, we better get out of here. Obviously not much safety concerns at that point, but we survived. Basically artillery strikes. We survived a bit of friendly fire with the bullets coming our way. But again, I was strangely calm because the other guys were calm.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

1975.923

But then afterwards they were, they said to me, they were like, oh bro, if you got shot, we'd just have to dump your body at a hospital. We wouldn't be able to explain why you're here blowing up cars. Right. Right. And you're American and athlete, international celebrity. I'd be like, what is he doing on the front line? There's no real good explanation for it.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

1996.59

But I mean, even through the jokes and stuff, it's good to like highlight what's actually kind of happening over there. You know, it's obviously very, very bad. What's the morale of the soldiers like? Is there still an optimism? Is there still a hope? I mean, there's sort of the battle fatigue. And as they say, all the heroes die early.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

2016.395

The guys, the real heroes that are willing to sacrifice themselves, they're the ones that are going to get taken out quick. Unfortunately, that's the reality for them over there. But their thoughts are mostly that it's going to be a prolonged war. Like when I ask them about how fast the front line moves, they're like, oh. could take six months to move one, 200 meters.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

2036.239

So it just feels like it's going to go on forever. And from the Ukrainian side's perspective, those guys talk to me about how when they hear radio intercepts of Russian soldiers marching to the same frontline spot is that basically they're marching into certain death at certain locations. And based on the radio transmissions,

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

2058.41

They know they're going to die, but they head forth anyway, straight forward into a Ukrainian position, which is just wild to me. I guess World War II, they just keep throwing troops at it. And you see a ton of footage they take themselves. It's just mind-blowing.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

2074.686

Obviously, some of this footage doesn't make it to the internet because it's got important sort of details in those conflicts, but they're showing first-person perspectives of trench warfare. It's just crazy to see what some of these guys have gone through.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

2095.992

What was your sense of the place? Curzon was like, it was just so destroyed. I think at this point, most of the civilians are gone. I saw a lot of just elderly people left behind, especially a lot of old men. And I just think they're just like, hey, I've lived here my whole life. I'm just never leaving. So no matter the level of danger, those guys just remain.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

2117.137

And then for the, it's largely just, I guess, military in Curzon. But that place felt very, very dangerous. I didn't realize until we got there just quite how destroyed it is.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

2130.947

Just seeing war head on. How did it change me? I guess just realizing a lot of these soldiers are just like, you kind of distance yourself from them thinking that they're something separate. But really speaking to a lot of the Ukrainian soldiers, like my friend Roman, he hadn't lived in Ukraine for eight years. He lived in France. He had a life. He's got a wife over there. He's got a daughter.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

2153.883

He basically volunteered to come back to protect his mom and brother who still lived there. I used to view them military guys because in Australia and I guess in the US, they don't have this conscription ongoing right now. Whereas obviously there's guys like Roman who volunteered. But then there's a lot of Ukrainian soldiers that were conscripted into the war.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

2180.523

So it's like you just realize how a lot of these guys are everyday people. They're just in this crazy situation where Roman felt obligated to return to Ukraine. From my perspective, anyone from Australia or U.S.,

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

2195.407

just it's just a different perspective on like those they feel different to the regular people fighting in ukraine from my perspective yeah it's defending the land that is your home yeah like japan was coming for australia i guess in world war ii they attacked the north but really there was no foot battle and there was no soldiers on the ground within australia i guess us too during world war ii so it's like a completely different perspective

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

2221.963

from our recent histories compared to, like if you were a Ukrainian and there's Russians within the defined border, their responsibility to protect their homeland and their family is 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 to protect Ukraine, protect their family and friends. And in a lot of cases,

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

2260.022

Yeah. I mean, in terms of the weapons, America provides weapons. So we saw a wide selection of weapons. Some of those would be old Soviet weapons, like obviously the RPG we shot and what we shot out of it is all Soviet weapons. it's very old weaponry and then you've got US weapons that have been given as well.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

2282.014

But in terms of the basic soldier's equipment, like 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, like they have to pay for that all themselves.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

2294.903

So they always joke about when foreign soldiers come over to train them or they, a lot of foreign soldiers come to learn about sort of the drone technology they've developed on a budget is they always joke with them about how like, Everything from most countries is basically supplied. All the good quality standard equipment they'd need is just supplied by the government.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

2314.777

But in Ukraine, obviously funding is very stretched. So these guys to have the best equipment, they have to basically find money to pay for it themselves. And they'll do that by seeking donations. best way to get donations would be to grow social media profiles.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

2330.921

So that's when you see a lot of sort of social media warfare from a perspective of gaining fame to secure donations for their battalion, to be able to fight better or protect themselves. And also some of the social media warfare, I guess, is psychological warfare against the enemy.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

2347.155

You'll see like private telegram groups where they're showing what they've done to the enemy, what the enemy's done to them. It's just crazy.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

2389.651

Yeah, so basically like a $300 to $500 drone. I think it's like carbon fiber, 3D printed, and they can attach different forms of weaponry to it, whether it's just dropping a frag, They could drop a mine out of it. I know they were talking about how they had a liquid that could basically burn through sort of a lot of cars and tanks.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

2409.88

So the person inside would basically melt alive, which sounds horrible. But what's mind blowing to me is you could have like a $3 million Russian tank that could be destroyed by a $300 drone, which is just crazy how fast the war changes. I think they're kind of the world leaders in budget drone technology. They obviously don't have the budget for these crazy, elaborate, massive drones.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

2434.554

I did see some higher budget, bigger drones over there, but for the most part, those FPV drones is really how most of the battles are fought. And you're seeing the... you're seeing the cameras on them. So you can see like basically a kamikaze drone will chase someone down and they have that footage. And that's what the police chief said to me when he gifted me one of the drones they used.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

2456.466

And he basically said, he's like, artillery is scary, but a drone will follow you into a building. It's like kind of a haunting thing to think about. Like they'll see the drone, they'll hear the drone. They might try to shoot it down or they might try to run. But if it's a kamikaze one... Those guys are pretty good at flying them. It's going to chase the soldiers down.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

2477.247

A lot of soldiers pretending to be dead. It's really crazy, some of the footage out there of those FPV drones.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

2491.532

Yeah, both sides use it. I remember I was with Roman in Marseille and he had his break period. He was allowed to leave the country because he basically volunteered to join the army. Ukrainian men can't really leave Ukraine right now. But Roman, I was in Marseille and this was a surreal experience for him.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

2508.447

We went to the beach and there were some tourists there flying a drone and you just saw his instinctual reaction to that drone sound in the sky. Flashback to that.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

2554.428

That would be wild. Because, I mean, they do those crazy drone light shows where they do those performances with the lights and stuff. So they're already pretty sophisticated with sort of pre-programming.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

2626.798

Yes, I mean, surreal. When we went to Curzon, he was like, the entire sky is just full of drones at any given time. They could decide to come and attack. So they could just sit there forever waiting, waiting for you to come out of that building. They'll wait a long time when someone goes and hides inside. Or potentially if it's open window, fly straight through the open window to get people.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

2649.042

Yeah, so you're not even safe indoors. Yeah, there's nowhere to hide.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

2671.573

life where you don't know if you're safe at any moment anywhere in ukraine well sure i mean it's crazy having a trump i thought maybe the next attack on a public figure might come in the form of drone technology some sort of something along those lines i wonder how they protect against that here if that happens just imagine the insanity that would ensue because we understand the idea of a gunman with a rifle

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

2698.453

shooting somebody but just like a drone just imagine the conspiracy theories who controlled that drone where did it come from yeah and now everybody i mean that will just cause chaos and the range is ever increasing one of the battalions in ukraine because those fpv drones have short range pretty short range but they were able to attach it to one of the larger drones with a signal booster so they could potentially go up to 30 40 kilometers into the distance so

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

2725.858

The drone that hits you could be flown by someone so far away from you. And if they did that domestically, that would be very frightening to think of the sphere of where it could have come from.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

2745.069

Not really. I guess it just seems to everyone that there's going to be no middle ground.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

2768.898

I mean, I think it would be a soldier by soldier basis. I know each of them had a different perspective. I remember I would ask them about in terms of US politics and their fears, because the first trip I went there, U.S. hadn't agreed to resupply weapons. So it was a very different feeling in the air there of concern over what was going to happen.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

2789.721

But they still remained quite optimistic that no matter who got in, they felt would do the right thing. But in terms of prolonged war, most people think it's going to go for a very long time, like the children's hospital that just was bombed in Kyiv. Anytime there's a moment like that, that reignites everything. I think it happens on both sides. I know that there was an attack in Crimea.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

2815.872

It was an attack on a beach, I guess. I don't know if that attack on the hospital was retribution for that, but that's the energy that is felt. They might have battle fatigue. But when something happens to civilians, especially kids on your side, it kind of reinvigorates the energy to fight for as long as necessary.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

2839.258

And in terms of a case-by-case basis, one of my friends, Dimitri, over there who trains jiu-jitsu and owns a gym, He was very passionate about it just because of the history. He brought out documents of his grandfather being executed by the USSR. So I know that when the war started, he took a bicycle helmet and his AK-47 and went out into the streets.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

2859.895

And he's like, I'd rather be dead than live under Russian rule again. So I mean, very case-by-case basis sort of personal history for them, I think.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

2882.526

I think most of the guys tried to keep it pretty positive. You know what I mean? Some people did think that maybe if Trump was elected, he wouldn't continue to fund it, but... They really try to stay optimistic. Most of the people I spoke to really tried to remain optimistic that they would be protected if it comes down to it.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

2903.033

But obviously there was a nine-month period where they weren't refunded. So as that stretched, obviously they're refunded now, but it takes a lot of time to get that equipment back to the points at which they need it. So, I mean, if ammunition had ran out, Patriot Defense System had ran out, really, really sort of scary prospect there. I don't know.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

2923.852

I guess no one knows what's going to happen there, but.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

2932.035

I'm an Australian diplomat. Diplomat. That could be a nice way in. Yeah, that would have been a nice way to the top. Luckily for me, most of the place I travel to, jujitsu gives me access to so many different individuals. It's super bizarre. Like oligarchs, royalty, I guess tech wizards. It's a strange group of people, like a cult around the world.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

2957.135

I get strange access just for being good at wrestling dudes.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

2975.28

I don't know what that is. It's like an inner circle. That's kind of like, because this film project we're working on, it's kind of focused on that. Yeah.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

2983.362

Because of the history I have in jujitsu and traveling and doing seminars and just getting access to strange experiences from the local, strange in a positive way, and participating in those experiences, that's what I sort of wanted to focus this travel show on was the community of jujitsu people around the world kind of really has no sort of ethnic background, religious background, even level of wealth.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

3021.864

Even like Sheikh Tarnoon, who started ADCC, I know when he went to the US and he studied there, He would train at a very simple gym. He wouldn't declare who he was. I watched a documentary produced about the story of Sheikh Tarnoon and how he studied in America, basically in anonymity. The people at his gym didn't know who he was in his country, and he trained there.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

3048.478

He trained with them for years, cleaned their mouths like anyone else, and then they didn't realize who he was until he said, hey, I want to invite you to my country. But he actually meant basically his royalty come and then they realized who this guy was and the significance of him.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

3091.217

I like to think with some of the aggressive clothing choices I've made and sold in the sport, that that should be a beacon that that person has hopefully some talent because they're fearlessly provoking the other party there.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

3113.867

It's a target, yeah, though. Yeah. Being flamboyant. If you come on the mats with something pink, a pink gi or something, people are circling in fast. Especially in Eastern Europe.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

3143.704

Hicks and Gracie, yes. I like to match looks from time to time in an homage. You look sexy. It's comfortable, actually. I enjoy it.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

3154.631

I'll only wear this now. I'll wear this for the Gabby match. I mean, yeah, we're trying to do a documentary series because the way I see it is I want to grow the sport of jiu-jitsu. And this sounds funny to say now because I'm doing a tournament, but everyone tries to do it through competition.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

3172.563

But as we know, most jiu-jitsu gyms you visit, a very small percentage of people compete, let alone compete regularly. You go to gyms that could be brown or black belts that don't know anything many of the big name competitors. So my thoughts were, we're never going to grow this sport by competition.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

3190.415

We're going to grow it by appealing to the large majority of people that do it, which are just people that enjoy it for the benefits it provides to them, whether health or psychological. And obviously many people inspired by Anthony Bourdain,

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

3205.472

Basically, he was looking at what he did with food by showing the very interesting characters in the food culture, the food industries, especially with street food, and building around that. So I'm trying to look at jiu-jitsu like a giant cult. Scientology isn't starting with Planet Xeno. It's starting with John Travolta and Tom Cruise.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

3223.947

So we can create a documentary travel series highlighting the diverse, interesting people that participate in the sport. In that sense, I hope we can grow up. But also... doing some charity work along the way. We'll release the Indonesia Bali episode pretty soon, but as an Australian, I do do a lot of damage culturally around the world, so I'd like to do some good as well.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

3247.357

We've done a lot of damage to Bali, so give back to local communities. We have an Australian there that runs an academy, Academy Christos. He's one of the guys we're donating a portion of the ticket sales to from our event, but he basically went straight into a Balinese slum started teaching jujitsu on a mat under a tree, and then slowly through donations has built a gym.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

3270.262

And his real focus is not just taking money from people and gifting it to them to help the community, but to teach them skills. So he'll take a lot of the disadvantaged kids and he'll teach them things like photo editing so they can get that work from the internet, really. Incredible guy.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

3290.9

Many masseuses have accused me of the same thing, unfortunately. All lies.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

3312.878

I just felt like he was very authentic. Wasn't afraid. Like, this is something I had trouble with when we first started doing the travel show. It's easy to do a travel show if you only say positive things about a place. Yeah. You know? But... He would find a very creative way to show what's good and bad, a very honest reflection of the place. So that's something I would strive to do.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

3332.925

However, in some places, it's very difficult. You know what I mean? Like, for example, Kazakhstan. If I were to say something negative about Kazakhstan, they'd be like, who's this foreign idiot talking about our culture?

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

3344.033

And I think that was 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.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

3369.096

I like to think so. Hopefully, yeah. Gabby Garcia. There's a deep, passionate love underneath the trolling. Yeah.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

3416.597

The mission has always been, first and foremost, increase athlete pay. So ADCC has invested a ton into the sport. Obviously, I mentioned Sheik Tanu. Sheik Tanu has done so much for the sport of grappling, particularly no-gi grappling. So he's growing it. He has funded this for a very, very long time.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

3438.217

But we've kind of hit a point since 2017 where the audience, the crowd watching live and at home behind a paywall has grown considerably. We had things like Meta Morris. We had the Eddie Bravo Invitational, Polaris, all these sort of professional events that have also contributed to growing the sport. And obviously people like Gordon Ryan have definitely increased the popularity of the sport.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

3463.094

But the payment for ADCC has never gone up. despite, again, the growth of it. So what I did, a lot of fans were asking me earlier in the year, they said, Craig, you're gonna do ADCC. And I said, that is a big commitment of time, energy, expenses on steroids to get my body ready for a tournament that I'll probably lose. And if I lose on day one, I make $0.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

3488.34

If I lose in the final, which I have done a couple of times, I only get $6,000. I think third place is $3,000. Fourth place is $1,000. So if you make day two, you get paid. But for me personally, seeing ADCC 2022, you're looking out to a sold out crowd of like 10,000 people. It's on Flow Grappling, which you know pay quite a bit of money for the streaming rights.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

3515.639

I can't comment on what that number would be. And then you go home, despite having put in all that effort, with only $6,000, and they're basically, the argument is you're paid in exposure. But again, there's many ways to expose yourself. You know what I mean? That's just one of the platforms to do so.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

3533.698

My problem was that they announced that they were going to go from Thomas & Mac to T-Mobile, which is a jump in quality of stadium, but not a significant jump in sort of seating. So we've gone from like 11,000 seat arena to I think a 15,000, 16,000 seat arena. And I knew that Flow Grappling would have had to pay more money because now the sport's growing so much.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

3557.324

And I can personally kind of track the growth of the sport through selling instructional DVDs, instructional online products, because that keeps growing. And we're targeting those white and blue belts vulnerable to internet marketing. And that audience continues to grow. And those will be the people that largely watch ADCC, events like this. So I simply said, in response to a lot of fans asking me,

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

3581.09

Why are you going to do ADCC? And I just simply made a video saying, no, probably not. Probably not. It'd be nice to make some more money. And then I listed a bunch of sports, such as cock bar, that you get paid more to win cock bar. In the villages of Kazakhstan, the payment structure is higher.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

3598.001

And I received a very aggressive response, not from any of Sheikh Tanun's people, but from basically who runs the event today. One of those guys amongst giving me death threats said, hey, T-Mobile costs $2 million. You don't know what you're talking about in terms of business and production. And he's probably right. But to me, $2 million is a waste of money for a jiu-jitsu event.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

3620.425

I don't think we're at that level yet. That's where the UFC hosts events. $2 million, that's an expensive, expensive venue. So we argued a bit on the internet. And he said, hey, if you don't like it, why don't you go get $2 million and put on your own tournament? And I said... I might just do that. And one of my anonymous friends kindly donated a $3 million budget.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

3643.905

And I actually messaged him before the show to say, hey, we won't reveal your identity because obviously anyone that has money is going to get asked for more money or ask for money from others. So he wants to remain anonymous. But he basically just said to enjoy the trolling aspect of it and also contribute to the sport of jiu-jitsu.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

3669.254

He sees my true identity and he wants to provoke. It's trolling for a good cause. Yeah. But basically, we were able to find Thomas and Mac Event Center, which was their original venue. And it just so happened to be available that same weekend. which we're very happy about. So we booked that out. We decided to ADCC pays 10,000 to the winner. We were like, you know what?

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

3692.773

We'll pay $10,000 plus one to show up. So to show up in our event, you're going to get paid more than to win ADCC. And not only that, we're going to broadcast it for free. So on Meta, X, and YouTube, you'll be able to watch this event for free. That's amazing. It's very considerate to the Flow Grappling streaming platform, I believe, to have also a free alternative on the same weekend.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

3715.624

And the brilliance of this whole thing is I was largely criticized for for not knowing anything about business, but the people criticizing me decided to host a tournament, a 15,000-seat arena. They decided to take sponsors.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

3729.711

They decided to use a streaming platform that would sell subscriptions based on the athletes that would enter it, but not give any of the talent, the athletes, a contract, which gave me this beautiful position to basically say, hey, what do you prefer, the prestige of an ADCC gold medal or money? And that's the fuse so far. And we put that out into the world. I didn't chase too many athletes down.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

3756.691

Obviously, a lot of these guys really need money. So you throw a million dollars out there, people are jumping on board. So initially, we started getting... We got two local guys here in Austin, the Tackett brothers. They jumped in first. And they're great kids. They really legitimized the whole thing because if... If we pick certain athletes, I'd just beat him guys straight away.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

3775.372

It's already looking a bit dodgy, but we've got some legitimate athletes, especially the under 80 kilo divisions full of minus two or three guys. That's the best people in the world in that weight division. And as we started to grow our roster here, what happened, I'm going to say this allegedly for legal reasons, is that the first move ADCC did was they matched the

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

3802.386

The female paid to the men's pay. So the women always traditionally got paid less, I think $6,000 for first place. As soon as we had Fion 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.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

3818.314

So me, being a feminist activist throughout many of my years on this earth, immediately got women's pay raised in the sport of jiu-jitsu. Equalized, basically. Which went counter to everything the promoter had said, because he said it was out of his control to raise money. He said only the ADCC, I guess coming directly from the Sheik, or the Sheik's sort of guys could raise the prize money.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

3841.282

He got it raised. And then what happened was once we started getting some of these big names here, so some of the best guys from ADCC would be in this division. We've got a bunch of champions or medalists or really the top betting favorites for their divisions there.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

3857.571

They started, again, I can't emphasize this enough, allegedly paying show money, which has never historically been done before, to keep athletes in their show.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

3874.704

I do have the documents. No, some of the guys obviously told me, you know how it is, you slap a million dollars on the table, it looks great. That was me proving I had the money, which wasn't even my money to begin with. But it was basically me saying, hey, the money's real. I don't know why, but strangely, a lot of people don't believe me when I'm telling the truth.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

3890.251

I don't know why they wouldn't. But what logically happens is they're like, oh, look how much money he has. We're going to give, like, give us more show money. So they're negotiating with me. There was one particular Brazilian businessman who,

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

3904.346

manager i won't say his name but he looks like the thing from fantastic four and he was a manager for some of these athletes and he would take a massive 20 cup so what he and i gotta i gotta pay respect to this uh respect to this because it actually caused trauma to the other team as well but he would uh i would invite an athlete to cji he would go to the other organization and

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

3928.376

And he would say to them, hey, what sort of deal could you give me to keep this guy? You want to keep him in your event? And he would use CJI to leverage more show money for his guys, of which he gets to grease the wheels with 20% for himself. At CJI, everyone gets $10,001 across the board and a million dollars prize money.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

3950.9

So there's no room for really negotiation for the tournament aspect of us. So he has a vested interest in putting his guys in ADCC because he can negotiate show money and he can basically take 20% of that for himself. But really...

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

3965.157

For the sport of grappling, this is incredible across the board because by us stealing or at least borrowing a bunch of athletes from ADCC, ADCC had to fill their divisions. So they filled their divisions with many other competitors that wouldn't have ordinarily had the chance to do ADCC. And really, although we've scheduled it the same weekend,

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

3987.535

Ours is actually Friday, Saturday, ADCC being Saturday, Sunday. Our day starts pretty late. So we start 5 p.m. Saturday. So really, 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. You'll be able to go all day Friday for us.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

4007.149

You'll sadly miss the ADCC Hall of Fame ceremony, where you'll see many of great speakers, public speakers, philosophers, innovators, tell their stories about hardship.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

4018.178

Just like at the end of any jujitsu seminar or beginning, if you're blessed like that, you might have a 45 minute monologue about how they're more knowledgeable than doctors, lawyers, classic black belt technique, but you will miss that. With great metaphors about lions. About lions, yes. About being a humble lion, most importantly. Humility is important. You can watch all that Friday.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

4038.55

You can watch most of ADCC Saturday. And then Saturday night in Las Vegas, I'll be doing what many men have done before, and that is wrestling a giant woman.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

4061.432

So Gabby Garcia is... The legend of sort of women's grappling. I think she's won more than anyone else. So between me and her, we would at least have 15 to 20 world championships, I'd imagine. Yeah. She's huge. I say that in an endearing way. She might be six foot four, six foot three.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

4085.121

And her weight varies depending on what time of the day it is between 220 and 275 pounds, but she's going to be coming in quite big and strong. Me, I am about 179 pounds right now and a 5'11". So I've got a significant size disadvantage. She has the credentials, but we're going to scrap it out, scrap it out and see.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

4107.256

Who's best, the greatest woman's competitor of all time, or a guy that's never won anything?

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

4120.222

Yeah.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

4126.425

It's been three years of seduction. It's been a long time.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

4139.86

Yeah, I would say it's a motivational message to the guy that keeps sending DMs to a guy on Instagram for years. that maybe after three years, it could also happen for you too. No matter her height and weight, I think persistence is the key here. Yeah. And we do have a wager on the line. What's the wager? This might be the first wager of its kind, I would hope, in combat sports history.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

4168.225

If she wins, I'll personally give her a million dollars. If I can footlock her... We're gonna collaborate together in an OnlyFans sex tape. Did she agree to this? She shook on it.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

4190.258

After August 17th, it's going to be firing. It's going to be on fire. Wow. I think that, and honestly, when we talk about Secret Investor, I think that could fund the entire tournament. It'd be that successful.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

4204.48

Yeah. I mean, it's going to be a spiritual experience for me.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

4214.724

Can you talk about the rule set? So we're using the angled walls inspired by Karate Kombat. Karate Kombat did those angled walls.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

4230.292

And the angled walls are... Yeah, so Karate Kombat have a square pit, right? We have a rectangular alley. We like the visual of just you're in the alley with someone. We both know what goes on an alley. There's only a couple of things that could go on back there. What's the second thing? Never mind. I got it.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

4247.426

But why this is brilliant, why the angled walls are brilliant for grappling, is because any grappling tournament, this goes without question, goes IBJJF, ADCC. The reset is one of the most annoying aspects of the sport, and one of the aspects of the sport that some of the sneakier guys take advantage of. There's guys out there that are brilliant at playing the edge.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

4270.026

Open the ref or reset him, or they'll shoot a takedown near the edge. And you might watch, and again, I'm picking on ADCC here, but you might watch an ADCC match where 90 seconds of a 10-minute match is the referee grabbing them, bringing them back to the center, or trying to recreate something interesting of a position that landed outside.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

4289.542

Not only is that sort of boring to me, and it sort of could be bias. Again, it's happened to me in events where the ref's gone, stop, I've stopped, he's moved a little bit more, and then there's an adjustment in the reset I mean, it's cheating to a certain extent. It's just more of an annoyance. They bring it back. They reset it to the best of their ability in the center.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

4312.468

The angled wall mitigates that. And it mitigates it in such a way that is a disadvantage to be pushed up against the angled wall. You're very easily taken down against the angled wall. You could use a cage like the UFC does or any sort of MMA organization cage. However, cage wrestling can be slow. You're obviously at the vertical and it can stagnate there.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

4333.789

Guys are very good at using split squats to really defend that position. For me personally, I don't love the cage for grappling. I'd like to differentiate it for grappling. What holds people back from using the alley or a pit-like structure is the viewing, the viewing angle. Because obviously if you're one of the VIPs or you pay for an expensive seat, that angled wall's above you.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

4357.389

A cage you can see into, an elevated platform sort of stage you can see clearly into because it's basically flat. But the athletes could fall off and injure themselves. So if something happens to UFC fire passes, the elevated flat stage It's kind of scary to be near the edge. You go off, you're going to land on concrete. You might want to do that to the other guy if you're that way inclined.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

4382.127

But the alley, the angled wall solves all those problems. Very minimal referee interference. Again, the only thing that holds people back is the expense of building it. But again, when you're spending someone else's money, you will spare no expense in production.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

4397.771

So we've spent a lot of money on the alley, and we've really gone out of our way to create an experience that around the alley, we've elevated everything so that the people watching will be able to see down into it. Because your instinctual thought is, oh, it sounds great, but how am I going to see in it unless I'm far up?

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

4416.285

You'd need a Colosseum-like structure, which is basically what we've attempted to create so that you get both a perfect... place to wrestle, to grapple in, as well as a perfect viewing angle for the fans. Well, I think it's an amazing idea.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

4443.243

I'll be honest, I competed for Karate Combat twice. Never once did I ever step foot into the pit. Just, again, like you said before the podcast, if there's a right way of doing things, I'm probably doing it the opposite.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

4462.317

i'm mostly an inspirational speaker at this point yeah you and tony robbins are like this same size at least but in terms of the training for obviously the athlete's very difficult some of these guys have gone out there and built their own angled walls yeah i saw that there's a cool video of that they're getting into that that's a smart thing to do there's a million dollars on the line you should probably invest in that but i also like a new surface that no one's competed on no one's

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

4486.277

gamed it yet. We're going to see it unfold. Like when UFC, when people started figuring out how to use the cage, we're going to see this unfold in front of our very eyes, how the strategies work for this. The other thing we've done too is we're doing rounds. So qualifying rounds would be three five-minute rounds. The final would be five fives.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

4507.603

why i want to do that is to incentivize action we're going to incentivize action through penalizing people but we really want i love a short burst a break and the guys can go hard again i don't like a jiu jitsu match where the guy takes the back early and he's like oh if i keep this position i've won and that's something that people that don't compete don't realize is if you take some if you get a good position early get up on the points

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

4534.181

You just sit there and go, oh, let's ride this to the end. That's why I want rounds so that you might take guys back. You really incentivize to get that finish. And the way we're trying to grow the sport is to steal the MMA scoring structure, which a lot of people criticize because they think it's overly complicated. They don't understand it.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

4552.728

But to the mass audience, they understand a 10-point must understand a decision in that sense. They understand it being scored round by round. So we're trying to appeal to a broader audience here.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

4564.253

But we think based on the structure, based on how hard we'll call stalling penalties, based on you wanting to finish your opponent quick to have a better chance at a million dollars, because it's 10,001 to show up and a million to win. If you ain't first, you're last. There's no reward for second place. I'm punishing the one position I've only ever been able to achieve in tournaments.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

4589.965

Are you worried that because of how much money is on the line, people will play careful? A very generous friend of mine has provided this money. I'm like, unless you guys go out there and try to kill each other and put it all on the line, I just won't do it again. I'm giving you guys a massive platform.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

4611.752

We've turned down offers from streaming platforms that wanted to buy the rights to this event because the marketing's gone very well. We're turning down money to grow the sport. The ADCC promoter said he wanted to grow the sport. So what he did is he put it behind a paywall and he used the money from the paywall to buy a more expensive sport. I don't think that's how you grow the sport.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

4632.188

I think you grow the sport like comedians do these days. Guys like Mark Norman will release a special for free. Andrew Schultz did it first, released a special for free, and it grew his audience massively. I think that's what jiu-jitsu needs.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

4644.995

We need an exciting show that's not behind a paywall that'll grow the sport, grow the audience, and really then ultimately we can get to a level where it could be behind a paywall, but I just don't think we're there yet.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

4667.892

And then you get a million every year. If this is a crazy, exciting event, the funding's going to be so easy year after year. And the other aspect we're doing to it is, unfortunately, I'm not going to make any money off this thing. It's a non-profit, and the money from charity... Except the OnlyFans, but whatever. That's the real cash cow. Yeah. But that's the real work, too.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

4694.934

Oh, that'll be for the follow-up therapy. That'll be an expensive gig for whoever takes that on board. Love hurts. That physically will, yeah. Ticket proceeds to charity. So, obviously, we've got the $3 million budget. We've got production expenses. We've got a team of staff to hire. But... If we could sell this thing out, we could potentially donate a ton of money to charity.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

4720.312

One of those charities is Tap Cancer Out. And what's great about this is Rich Byrne is a black belt from New York who's in the banking world. He used to run an event called Kasai Grappling. He went through cancer. He basically had a very aggressive cancer. He had it treated.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

4737.483

And now he basically has said to us that whatever we donate from the profits of the event, he's going to match dollar for dollar. And we've also had another guy who wants to remain anonymous agree to match dollar for dollar as well. So the more ticket sales revenue we can create here, the more we can actually give back to charity. So it's really all round, it's going to be a great event.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

4783.05

I've never wrestled a big woman either. Well, I have, but not in this form.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

4791.216

What's been the hardest aspects of actually bringing this to life? The first one was people believing it was real. That was quite difficult. And then communicating with the athletes. That's basically my responsibility is securing these guys, getting these guys to commit to things. It's very difficult. There's a reason a few athletes in every sport really stand out.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

4814.955

And it's kind of professionalism and kind of the way they market themselves. And I think those two things do go hand in hand. So we're in a sport where there's not enough money, where a lot of these guys do have managers. I think in MMA, things would be a lot easier for the promoter because you're not talking directly to the athlete.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

4831.161

You're talking to a guy who might, who's obviously taking a cut, but like... There's a middleman. So in a situation where you're talking directly to the athlete, it can be very difficult. can be very annoying, can be very hard to reach these guys. They can be very noncommittal. That, for me, has been one of the biggest challenges. The guys that I speak to that are like, I'm in.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

4849.558

And they're like, I'm out. I'm in, like navigating this area. One other aspect is because we did this basically from idea to event will be less than three months, three and a half months. So it's like we're having to do so much in such a short period of time. Little things like of the show money we've given them, they're expected to basically secure their own flight and hotel to the event.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

4874.86

We're cutting down on staff. Cause that would be one of the, if I had to coordinate getting these guys flights, I would just jump off a building. Like it's, it's hard enough to get them to agree to the event. Let alone coordinate, hey, what date do you want to come in? It's like herding cats. So really just the interpersonal stuff's been difficult.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

4893.65

Obviously going up against ADCC, the legacy event has been pretty damn difficult as well. Well-established, huge history. They've been selling tickets for two years. Everyone's known it's been coming for two years. That thing was largely sold out before we even announced the event. So we're going head to head with this event. So from a ticket sales perspective, very difficult.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

4920.739

Oh, I mean, we can name names. I mean, obviously, Kynan, he was a semi-in, semi-out. His suggestion was actually to do a second and third place prize rather than a million. And I'm like, no, we want all or nothing. It's all or nothing here. That's a better spectacle, better entertainment. Yeah. Probably more injuries, but it's all or nothing. Miki Galvao, the one that got away. Yeah. That's sad.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

4950.337

But we got the Rotolos. The Rotolos, props to these kids, because Cade's the reigning champion. These are two of the best guys in the sport. Allegedly... were offered pretty significant show money to stay. But they hit me up and they said, hey, promise us one thing. We're on opposite sides of the brackets and we'll fight to the death in the final for the million. And we know, everyone knows that.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

4976.554

We've seen them compete against each other multiple times. So that... was not a surprise because I know they're good kids, but to basically turn down allegedly show money to do this event, to support the event, to me is incredible. Mika Galvao, things would be more complicated there. Like obviously, Mika officially joined ADCC before he secured the Rotolos. Cade beat him in the final.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

5000.681

Mika's personally motivated to face off against Cade. So he didn't know Cade was in our event before he agreed to ADCC. Mm-hmm. There's more to that story too in terms of Mika doing ADCC because a bunch of the kids in his team, I think they're being flown out to do the ADCC kids event. So there's like his two teammates, well, at least one of his teammates will be doing the ADCC 66 kilo division.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

5023.773

So his dad, his coach doesn't really want to split time between two events. That's a difficulty for athletes there. But obviously disappointing. We couldn't secure Mika. Mika said he was about the legacy. So he wanted to be the youngest guy ever to double Grand Slam, which is basically win all the Gi events and win the ADCC that same year.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

5046.554

My thoughts were, if I was in his position, and I never was obviously a prodigy, a talent like that, is I thought he had... a position to make a statement in the sport, to kind of, as cheesy as it sounds, be on the right side of history, to have turned down a double Grand Slam to be in an event that supports athlete pay. Again, I don't overly criticize him.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

5072.213

But I think in terms of your legacy and reputation, to be at a point and choose to do that is much more memorable than him getting that double grand slam, which I'm sure he will win the ADCC 77 kilo division this year, but it'll be somewhat tarnished anyway.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

5090.069

So I do feel bad for some of the athletes that win this year and potentially people will be like, oh yeah, but that was half the people weren't in the division. I feel bad for those guys. But at the end of the day, Most of these guys had an opportunity to be a part of an event that really there's no downside to. You'll have a chance to be paid more money than you've ever been paid in your life.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

5111.25

You're selling tickets that are going to go to charity, and it's not behind a paywall. So anyone, anywhere in the world can stream this event, watch it, and there's no barrier to entry in terms of finances.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

5129.205

I don't think so. I don't think so. Is that something you tried? Me and Gordon don't text each other too often. I tag him on Instagram and things, but he doesn't respond. Tell me about your history with Nicholas Merigali. My history with Nicholas Merigali. Actually, it dates back to a time where probably he does not even remember. Back when I used to wear a kimono. So I went to Abu Dhabi World Pro.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

5153.201

I was chasing my gi dreams. I lost in, I can't even remember. Again, probably the final, not me. I probably lost in the final against Tommy Langlacker in the weight division. This was the last year they did the absolute. I went into the absolute. I made it all the way to the semis. Nicholas Merigali destroyed me in the gi. I did hit a nice little reversal on him though.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

5173.835

He passed my guard and I somehow reversed him from side control. That's the only part of the match I share, after which he swept me, submitted me.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

5184.583

Yeah.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

5188.349

Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

5192.414

But then years later, I left the team. Mary Golly replaced me. So they brought in a more credentialed, handsome guy. Doesn't speak as well, but they brought him in. He's my replacement. He's coming to the team. We face off at ADCC. I do a heavier division thinking, I looked at the names and I was like, that looks like an easier division. And I had two teammates at the time that were in my 88.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

5218.093

And I was like, those guys will have to face off first round. I'll have to face one of them second round, the way they do the seating and the structure of the bracket. So I was like, I'll do 99. I'll leave 88 for the boys. They both lost my division first round, unfortunately. I faced off against Merigali beginning of day two. Lot of pressure because Danaher used to corner me, used to be my coach.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

5241.668

Now, he's cornering the Brazilians who we used to complain about as the enemy. I'm like, what's going on over here? It's like karate kid stuff. I faced off against Merigali. I go hard early because I think he can't defend leg locks. For the first three minutes, I'm just attacking legs, legs, legs. I ended up sweeping him, getting on top.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

5260.741

No points before the points period, but I'm very tired at this point. Merigali's big. There's some guys that get juiced up to hit a certain weight. That's what I did to enter this division. You can't keep your gas tank. Merigali's just a big dude. Who knows if he's on the juice or not, but he's just naturally sits around 230 pounds or even 225.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

5283.076

When you're naturally that big, your gas tank's a bit better. Again, if you balloon yourself up on every substance possible, gas tank's surprisingly not too good. So we have a bit of a close one. Decision goes my way. Ultimately, finals next, I lose that. But that is sort of our competitive history.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

5300

We were meant to have a match that had been pre-booked immediately after ADCC. So we agreed to this before ADCC. I was like, if the price is right, I'm in. So I sign up for it, and I'm thinking ADCC that we're going to face off soon after. Miragali chose instead to have some vacation time. He wanted to go on vacation. He wanted to relax. A bit of relaxation down in Brazil.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

5323.554

So the match is scrapped. Flo hit me up. And they say, can you do February? And this was about the time that Volks fought Islam in Perth. I was like, no, I can't do February because I'll be helping Volkanovski. That's going to take precedence over this match. Flo goes, you know what we'll do? We'll announce it anyway. We'll sell those tickets anyway.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

5343.984

We'll get the people hyped and then we'll just have you pull out. And I'm like, all right, do whatever you want. That's fucking probably not a good idea, but they do that. And then people keep trying to rebook this match. But now I barely even train anymore. I'm busy being a promoter, traveling around.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

5363.901

So now instead of facing him in competition again, which I would do if the price was right, they'd have to pay me very well. Two of the shows have offered me the match, but the money, terrible. What do you think is a number that would convince you? It would have to be, I would think, half a million dollars. Otherwise, I just can't be bothered. You know what I mean? It has to be worth it.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

5384.28

Because to put a price on a guy that takes himself as serious as Merigali, Merigali's a very serious man. He's talking about authenticity. He's talking about words he doesn't even understand. For me to give him the opportunity to live in a world where he had won the last match against me, it's hard to put a price on that.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

5403.748

You know, when people say it's not about the money, it's not about the money. It's about me waking up every day knowing that he knows he lost to me.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

5421.296

I think over five minutes, I beat anyone in the world.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

5426.478

I still think I got it. Gabby about to find out, too.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

5439.003

Yeah, she for sure will remember. I think the fans will remember it as well. I'm open to it. If we do this match... I'm taking it very serious, but we'd be open to rematches. I've always said I would have a MMA fight with her. I wouldn't be afraid to hit a big woman.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

5462.314

I'm a bit of a romantic. I think she deserves a few finishes, you know? Not one and hit the bed that night.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

5470.981

I think so, yeah. I mean, you could throw a riddle at him before the match. That'd fucking complicate things for him for the next hour. Will you and Gordon ever get along again? I think so. I think we need... The origins of MDMA was couples therapy in the 70s in Houston, I believe. I believe something like that for us could resolve these underlying issues.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

5495.494

Just imagine a therapist sitting down with him. They'd be like, clear the schedule for the next couple of weeks.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

5507.452

I do have a therapist, actually. They prescribed me Vyvanse. He's quite confident in my well-being.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

5515.53

It's a Russian website.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

5523.937

I think me and Gordon, a debate of some type would be awesome. Like a political debate? Yeah. Me representing Kamala Harris and him representing Donald Trump.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

5536.107

An intellectual battle. A battle of wits.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

5548.126

For sure. They have to be worthy of being attacked. You know what I mean? Like, if someone attacks, that's the thing. It's like, you want a worthy adversary, not in a sense of, I don't want to battle someone that has better banter than me, because I'm going to lose, but I want to battle someone with a profile large enough that it doesn't look like you're just...

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

5590.156

Chael is better. I mean, I think if you can shit talk an MMA, because there's far worse consequences for you. If you're still willing to do it, when really violent things can happen to you, I mean, I'm getting death threats, but he has a certainty of violence against his opponents in MMA.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

5625.893

That's a good question. Hey, I think it would have happened after I moved to America. Because in Australia, we just, on a daily basis, say some of the worst things you could ever imagine. Like in private life? Yeah. We're just trying to ruin each other's day. In a way that's so blasé, you're going back and forth. And the guy that actually gets upset and says some real shit, that's... your victory.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

5649.297

You know what I mean? Like you're like, Oh, we gotcha. You're actually, that actually bothers you. All right. We'll take that as a victory.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

5662.745

An Australian entering American banter is like Neo getting his matrix skills. You're just like, Whoa, I see everything coming.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

5679.031

I don't think so. I don't think so. So you're proud of yourself? I think what I offer is some balance. It's like I'm bringing some justice. Ultimately, it'll probably come back in spades to me. Yeah.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

5702.704

I wish he'd buy it back. He doesn't buy it back anymore, though.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

5711.581

I mean, it's been a love-hate relationship. Like with Gabby? Like any good relationship, if you don't get blocked at the end of it, were you really in love to begin with? Right. That's my thoughts anyway. So in terms of my friendship with Mo, me and Mo were really close friends for a long time. We'd talk a lot. He was instrumental in us moving down to a death squad to Puerto Rico.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

5735.805

He lives in Puerto Rico, spends most of his time in Puerto Rico. I've spent time with him in Florida, California. But in terms of our relationship, I'm trying to think of an exact time where it went south. But I guess him being the ADCC organizer, in my attack of athlete compensation, I was taken personally, which is obviously gonna ruin whatever friendship you had.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

5773.367

I mean, to be honest, CJI was a result of the response of my discussion of athlete compensation. So me and Mo had been close friends. Even after the Danaher team broke up, we were still close friends for quite a while after that. But it does complicate things when someone is, for all intents and purposes, as an ADCC competitor, and he runs ADCC, the event, he's in control of it now.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

5802.812

He is your boss. So that does complicate our friendship. Have you had a conversation since you announced CJI? Have we had a conversation? When did you get blocked? I honestly didn't get blocked. I was just joking. Nah. Honestly, we had a disagreement about athlete compensation. I said, let's do a podcast and talk about it because I'm a big fan of transparency.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

5828.727

If you think I'm an idiot for thinking athletes should get paid more, tell me it. Show it to me. And I've made public statements. Other people have asked why we don't get paid more money. You can both tell me and the world at the same time, the grappling world at the same time, but was not interested in doing a podcast.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

5850.92

Again, maybe he thought I was going to hit him with some gotcha questions or something. But really, at the end of the day, I personally believe you've got nothing to hide. If you are confident in the business decisions you've made, then there's no gotcha moment that I could actually do.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

5865.61

I could easily, I would have done the podcast if I looked like a complete idiot, would have released it anyway, because it would be a good message to where we are in the sport. But again, considering what I know about Thomas and Mac's price, which I believe we're paying $200,000 for, and T-Mobile's $2 million...

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

5882.728

How do you justify no increase in athlete pay while we have a 1.8 million increase in venue cost?

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

5897.132

I've never once thought this was some organization where Mo's stealing money for himself. I'm just saying that And again, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. So he might fully think that what he's doing is going to grow the sport. I'm going about it in a completely different way. I don't think we need T-Mobile. I don't think we need a behind a paywall.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

5920.76

I think we need cheap venue, still maintain good quality production, release it for free. If you want something to grow, present it for free. Is there a future where the two of you talk? Yeah, for sure. He keeps insisting on talking face-to-face. I don't have a problem with that, but my argument is this is a public feud. We're having a disagreement.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

5947.22

Let's settle the disagreement in a way that answers the question to the fans. Because if one of us is a complete idiot, then I believe the world... of people following this story are entitled to know which one of us is an idiot.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

5970.671

I don't even think I need to troll them. I just say, Hey, why? Like, like show us the books. You know what I mean? Like, honestly, when our event's done, we're going to be pretty transparent. Obviously we are ran as a nonprofit. We're going to be pretty transparent about everything. I mean, obviously, ultimately, all the views we get.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

5991.413

When an event's on Flow Grappling or Fight Pass or any other streaming provider, unless it's a pay-per-view, you're not going to know how many people watched. So that's one aspect of what we're doing is we're going to have a visual sort of guide to how many people are fans of grappling.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

6129.908

Well, I mean, just because basically it's going to grow the sport. You know what I mean? Like, if you have to subscribe to a platform... to watch something you have a mild interest in, a mild curiosity in. There's a financial barrier there. So I want to open it up because again, we have an investor who's contributing and is happy for it to be spent this way.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

6156.779

Happy for us not to be held hostage by these sort of streaming providers. And really like, again, I'm not making accusations against Flow Grappling or UFC Fight Pass. 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.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

6178.577

But for me as an individual athlete that really wants to understand the metrics of how many people actually watch this sport, to leverage that in my own sponsorship negotiations,

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

6189.204

Then if I'm in a position to have this out free and also give every athlete involved the same metrics and information, like you will literally be able to see the spikes when you compete and you'll be able to take that and present it. for opportunities, for sponsorships, for businesses to say, look, look how many views this got. I was one of the most viewed moments of this event.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

6213.223

So I want to put the power back in the athlete and take it away from the host. And it creates a lot of incentive for the athlete to make it exciting. Yeah. This is your time. It might never happen again. I fully intend to run this every year. That's the goal. But again, it might never happen again.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

6236.351

Could I take over ADCC? I think from... an ADCC perspective, it would make a lot of sense. I think it would make a lot of sense to wait to see if this event turns into Fyre Festival first before you commit to something like that. But I think a more modern approach to the promotion of the event, again, I keep going back to the comedians. If you want to grow your brand, whatever that may be,

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

6263.584

provide content for free, and you can paywall eventually. You can grow the audience, create the audience free. I think, again, if your goal is to create, a huge sport here, then it's like, if we're already a niche sport, and competition aspect of that is an even smaller niche, then we need to grow that providing this content for free.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

6307.519

It would be a poetic ending. It would be an underdog story from a man that could never win the event. to running the event on behalf of the Shakedown.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

6342.389

I mean, psychologically, it's really, really brutal. Like for me, anytime I'm leading up to any event of any meaningful significance, it's horrible on a psychological level because you're always thinking about, are you training enough? Are you doing enough? If you feel any signs of sickness, injury, the stress levels increase, your sleep quality decreases.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

6364.604

It's all those little subtle things that are so hard to mitigate. So like whether you feel like you're training hard enough, you're overtraining, those to me are the most difficult aspects. And I think really those are an individual thing. And that's really something where a coach can provide guidance. what he thinks to you is the right amount of work.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

6386.169

And I think that's different for different people. I think Nicky Rod could do eight hours a day. You know what I mean? I think Nicky Ryan, eight minutes.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

6395.891

Yes.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

6401.692

That is satisfying to watch, honestly.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

6412.069

Yeah. I mean, and it's an impossible thing to grasp. It's like 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, relaxed. Almost like, oh, well, you know, like you got called up a week ago. You're injured, you missed four weeks of your camp.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

6434.625

And I went in there super relaxed and accepting of the result and performed much better. Sometimes when I know three months out, I've got an event coming up and that event only happens every two years. The stress of that alone. Personally, on an individual level, I'd rather wing it. I'd rather be in the stands and just roll down.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

6457.601

Gunnar Nelson, I remember he had a brilliant performance in an ADCC Absolute. He was out drinking the night before. He had no idea he was competing the next day. He was in the stands eating ice cream. And they called his name for the absolute and he went out there and I believe he got bronze. I believe he beat Jeff Munson. So it's like, it's different for different people.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

6475.198

Obviously you don't want that to be the standard. You've got to be putting in the work at all times. But even now in my crazy travel schedule where I don't train anywhere near like I used to. As long as your game is technical and as long as your body's in good condition, I believe you can still train well against world-class guys.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

6498.17

You might not be able to do an hour straight, but if you're technique-orientated, you're just losing fitness.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

6511.696

For sure, for sure, yeah. I've never wanted to win anything bad enough to train properly for it.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

6520.262

I think so. I think that's the only logical explanation. And I also use it as mind games too. Again, no one knows whether what I'm saying is true or not. Right. And I'm not saying this story to say anything bad about my opponent at the time, but I booked two matches and two consecutive weekends. And I've been traveling. I think I just got back from – One of my trips.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

6546.319

I've been over international, so I don't even know where the fuck I was. You're in Texas right now, by the way, just in case you forgot. Texas, just for you. Just came back for you. Thank you, man. It's an honor. But I hadn't really even trained. I couldn't train. I was traveling, just had no ability to train. I trained for like a week, had the Phil Roe match.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

6565.354

And I said to myself, I was down in Mexico City. And I said, you know what? If you win this match, you got to face Lovato next week. Don't go out and party. Don't celebrate the victory. But as a 32-year-old man at the time hitting a flying triangle submission, I thought that deemed a worthy after party. And we got out of control that night.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

6587.931

And it wasn't until the next day I woke up, I was like, oh, I have Lovato next weekend. But I'm also, people don't know whether I'm telling the truth or not, but it's also, I'm almost too honest because I'll be like doing interviews saying, yeah, I was out partying, I barely trained. The opponent looks into that and they question it. Is he telling the truth? Is he baiting me?

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

6606.282

Is he really that unconcerned? You know what I mean? It's almost a psychological battle in and of itself. But for the most part, it's true.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

6625.723

Shit talking. Well, I mean, you got to silently sit back and think about a good response, you know?

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

6646.635

Yeah, I think you have to put in the hard rounds. It depends at what point in your career you are. You know, like I think like... Someone like Nicky Ryan might almost train too technically too often, and when he comes to competition, it's a confronting experience when someone hits him hard and he feels that pressure. So I think different people require different things.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

6667.046

When Nicky Rod is breaking the spine of a 37-year-old father of a three-bus driver, it might be time for him to train in a more technical manner. So it's like you've got to cater to what they need. And again, depending on the opponent, it's a game of strategy. For me...

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

6683.08

When I was more active, I look at an opponent that I want, that I could steal some clout from, of which the clout you can make money. And I think to myself, what's the best rule set I can beat him in? That's the strategy. And then how would I beat him in that rule set? So there's so many strategic layers to go above and beyond just the training for me. But nowadays I like to, if I train.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

6705.842

Short duration, high intensity. That's the best of me. I don't like this six or like 10 six-minute rounds, whatever. Like I don't like this long training. I don't like – for me, it's too much toll on the body. I think I go to the gym. We bang – maybe the first round slightly light and then just bang it out. Two hard rounds, tops.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

6729.478

A little bit of problem solving, get out of there because you want to feel –

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

6733.666

the a little bit of the competition intensity that feels the best on my body uh when you're traveling you're doing seminars and just doing jiu-jitsu with folks are you training with them i'm sure there's like from everything i see people would love to train with you yeah they want to they want to i mean i don't know what it is obviously you yeah i guess you it's like people want to play basketball with like a basketball star or something you know what i mean but uh

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

6763.444

I guess if you played one-on-one with a basketball, there's no great risk of injury. That's the real problem is like, if you don't roll at your seminar, the seminar participants don't feel like they got the full experience. But there's snipers at these seminars. There's these sharks that are circling wanting to attack you. And you have to look at it from both perspectives.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

6790.056

I think you should provide excellent technique Excellent question and answer time. And I think you should roll a little bit. For the most part these days, I'll just roll 30 minutes straight. I'll just do 10 guys, three minutes, no break, 30 minutes straight. I might even get the guy to pick because, again, some of these guys come in hot.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

6836.946

I'm in Odessa. I'd like to get to know the people, try some food, have a couple of drinks, and enjoy the place. But to them, it's time to go. You've got to rope it open a bit. 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.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

6859.805

But 100%, if I'm at a seminar and someone's rolling too hard with me, if I feel like I might get hurt, I will 100% rip a submission on them. You know what I mean? It's like you're confronted with a threat. Yeah. You have to meet it with a threat. It's like, uh, I've spoken about this with Ryan Hall. Ryan Hall, give him a warning and then gone. And I think it's perfectly acceptable.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

6883.601

Like I won't endanger them for no reason, but if you're coming hot, you better tap fast. If I feel a threat, you better tap. I'm not going to break, break it for the sake of breaking it. But if you're, if you do some crazy shit that might potentially hurt me and I get a submission. and I'm tired. If you're fresh, you can catch a heel hook, hold it tight, the guy tries to wiggle out, you got it.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

6909.586

Yeah. If you're tired, and you've been nice with the heel hook, and then they slip out and club you in the head, then next time is going to be the last time.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

6933.237

Oh, but they're coming for you, too.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

6956.355

across the world for like for many more years to come but it's tough you can't do it if you 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 that's the sad situation people used to say oh you could be such as you go to any gym not those days are over now now

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

6982.102

If you show up and you have any sort of name, they're coming to kill. Honestly, you're better off. It's so much safer. Training is about trusting. Trust is built from safe rounds.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

6995.869

Strangers are scary.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

7003.833

Are they from Eastern Europe? I'll tell you what, the most dangerous. That's a good one. You know what? Anyone that wears a Pitbull sports rash guard or anyone from the country of Poland, be ready. Oh, Polish people go hard. People go hard.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

7028.4

To send a message or just for your own personal enjoyment? I don't enjoy it. You know, they... You don't enjoy the violence. It is humorous after the fact though. I mean, it's just like, hey, like, bro, I'm jet lagged. I'm tired. I'm here for you guys. Why are you trying to hurt me? You know, like if I get a submission, tap, don't hesitate at all. Don't hesitate.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

7051.235

You know, like, it's like, it's, I mean, Jiu Jitsu is dangerous. It's a dangerous thing. And when strangers going crazy, it's their show. They think they're getting an invite to the CJI if they tap me. It's just wild.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

7089.996

I mean, honestly, picking safe training partners and trying to understand the positions and not just freaking out. Like you might escape if you freak out, but you also might be stuck in something and you injure yourself. So it's like, I think if you can, it's just about longevity. You know, like if you can find a pace to train at,

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

7112.259

and a like sort of intensity and the right people, you could potentially train five years without injury. It's really about how you move. If you are always moving in an explosive way, eventually you're going to do that from a position in which you can't move and then someone's going to tear. And you also want to be able to trust training partners to not go too crazy and inflict too much pain.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

7137.191

You know what I mean? It's like, uh, Yeah, I think I've managed to avoid a lot of injuries because I just never roll too athletically, explosively. I think I'm probably incapable of moving at that rate of speed.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

7159.585

I let them put me in a bad position, but I try to stay relaxed at all times. You know, that's the key here is like... I mean, yeah, obviously you got the cheesy, keep it playful, but it's like, 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.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

7182.416

You can give him whatever you want.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

7209.497

Yeah. If you can make someone panic, you will fatigue them. It's the same. It's like if you're... Even if you're a higher level and you're worried about getting your guard passed... It's the panic that leads to fatigue in your guard retention. But if you're so flexible, you remain calm. I think it's because you're not panicked. Fear is the mind killer.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

7245.768

I mean, financial motivation. If you can hit moves that no one else knows how to do, you can sell those instructionals. But also, it keeps it interesting, because it's like, I mean, it can get stagnant and boring. A lot of people get to blue belt. They're good at one thing. They only do that one thing. I think it's finding creative ways to beat people.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

7267.258

And sometimes, creativity is in how they respond to it. So if you can find a humiliating move to do to someone, Well, not even necessarily humiliating, but a move that is unexpected. When you get hit with something you don't expect, I think that is sort of really one of the most fun aspects of it. You know what I mean? Like you train to stay better than the people you're better than.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

7289.229

That's what keeps you in the game. And finding creative ways to beat those people is some of the most entertainment.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

7301.22

Yeah. Trying to, if you get swept with something that you don't think should work, I think that's fulfillment.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

7317.975

I mean, you just studying tape, just study, study tape and try to reverse engineer. Like if I see a, if I see something or I train with someone and it feels like You know when you have those moments where you're like, oh, I don't even know what they're doing here. And if you can put someone in a position they don't understand, that's also where they panic.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

7337.391

So it's like creating different ways to make people panic. But also, I mean, it's just innovation, like having fun with it. You know, like I guess the artistic aspect of it is fun. You can be creative in how you can beat people.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

7351.744

Both.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

7361.767

I don't think I've come up with anything, but I've popularized things. You know, like certain styles of leg entry. I definitely didn't invent them, but I popularized them. Octopus guard, playing more from turtle, sort of the pinning style of game. Like as a...

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

7379.52

because of my jokes online, put me in a position of power in the sport so that when I post content, it can popularize a move or at least an instruction or popularize a game. But it's still, I'm not trying to sell inauthentic products. I'm still, I want the technique to work.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

7403.701

I mean, unfortunately, Meta, the ads, were not appreciating some of that humor. So we had to soften the titles a bit.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

7415.349

I didn't. Allegedly, the company hosting it did.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

7428.637

I haven't trained with him. I met him when Volk's fought Ilya. We've spoken briefly. Interesting guy, for sure. Loves jiu-jitsu. Loves MMA. He's really intending to compete in something, I think.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

7455.983

We'd love to have him. But he is coming off of ACL surgery. I think he's returned to sport. He's August. So I think he'll be back training again soon.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

7473.544

I mean, for me personally, what's so interesting about Volkanovski is his, I guess where he came from. It's like you have pre-existing ideas. of what a UFC champion is. Again, I would say it's similar to when I started training jiu-jitsu and I first traveled to America and got to train with some really famous people. You realize how relatable they are in some aspects.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

748.024

We had security, but only by Joe Rogan's request. Because he said, you're really going to bring it?

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

7495.801

Volkanovski trains a freestyle, and it is humble beginnings, humble origins. It's a small gym in a small... beachside city. They're running puzzle mats. You know what I mean? When you think UFC champion, you don't think puzzle mat gym. You know what I mean? He's not training at an American top team. He's not at one of these big gyms.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

7518.401

To me, it just shows what you're capable of through hard work and self-educating in such an isolated place. 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.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

753.487

Do you have security? I said, no. He's like, don't worry about it. I'll send my security. So you were going to do it without security? Yeah, we're going to wing it. I thought, I mean... I was told not to tell anyone. Yeah. But I sent pictures of it to everyone I know. Yeah. So that was probably a security risk. Yeah. So it's just you in a car with a bag of cash. Yeah.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

7540.233

But also, in terms of what I've learned, on a technical level, I've picked up a lot of stuff from him in sort of grappling exchanges, how to get back up, obviously wall wrestling. In terms of how hard he trains, how hard he works the cardio aspect is insane. His cardio workouts are absolutely insane. So he's the opposite of you. Complete opposite of me, probably publicly and privately.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

7566.34

As an athlete, yeah. The amount of work he puts in and just his sheer sort of mental willpower. I remember there's been a couple of times where I've watched him do weight cuts where like, that's horrible. You're watching your friend. You know, obviously we started as... Basically, I would help him in certain jiu-jitsu aspects and then becomes a close friend of yours.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

7586.861

But the whole process of the MMA fight is horrible, especially when you care about the person fighting. Because some of those weight cuts you see are awful. You're basically seeing guys' eyes roll back in their head. Him just powering through a 5-kilo, 10-pound cut. And just constantly talking about how easy it is. But while clearly... These guys look like they're dying.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

7613.601

To push through that and then to push through some of the moments in his fight. To watch him be completely relaxed until five minutes before the fight and then he starts talking about, you're never going to take this belt away from my family. He's singing about his family before he fights his kids. You see the character change. It's just absolutely insane to watch.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

7635.916

On the other side of that is obviously watching the ups and downs. There's been so many ups. The last two have been downs. So you're seeing the full spectrum of the highest highs and the lowest lows. How is he able to deal psychologically with loss? I don't know. Obviously, he's still hungry, still motivated. Obviously, I thrive in a losing environment, but here...

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

7659.686

him on the other hand i'm not sure but we don't talk too much on that level obviously we check in his friends see what he's up to see what he's planning yeah uh we were trying to get him a grappling match at cji i won't say the reasons it fell through but we were setting one up with mikey musumichi but we couldn't get it done

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

7684.135

I can't say the reasons, but it would have been awesome.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

7697.12

Being the promoter, tournament, not as bad. The super fights, really, really difficult. I don't think we could have set it up with more time that particular match, but that was the dream. That's what we're hoping to do.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

771.16

It was a company that sponsors me. Shuffle.com. It was their friend, a friend of theirs. So a guy that's never met me before.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

7715.536

Yeah, I'd love to see. I mean, personally, I really want to see Vox and Ortega have an actual grappling match because we saw him get out of those deep submissions and apply a ton of ground and power. I'd love to see him. Just have a grappling match. I'd love to see more of the UFC stars have grappling matches, especially if they've had any head trauma in a fight.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

7734.394

It's like, hey, let's keep them busy. Because as you see, some of those guys go crazy if they can't train. What about the fights against Makachev? You think Vol could beat him? I think the first fight showed he could beat him. For sure. Showed it's possible. Even in the second fight, when he reversed the grappling exchange, I wish he'd tried to take Makachev down.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

7755.304

I really think he has a huge strength advantage against Makachev. And I personally believe he has a fence wrestling advantage. You might not see it in a... In a sense of the technical hip tosses and things like that. But I do believe Vox is one of the best, if not the best, cage wrestler in the world. Who do you think wins in a grappling match? That would be interesting.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

778.687

Just took the risk to show up to a stranger's house with a million dollars in cash to bring to Joe Rogan. It was a big risk of him. And you just put it in the car and drove it. Drove it over there. Yeah. Yeah. Well, no security except Joe. Except Joe. That's common sense. And then Joe said he'd never seen a million dollars before.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

7780.557

The problem is, while you are a champion like Islam is, you could just never book him. You could never get it.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

7793.112

I mean, I think, personally, those guys are just like... They just love it. It's just about like... It's how they train, like it's a fight to the death. You know what I mean? Like it's just built in them. They don't wanna concede an inch ever. I think for MMA and wrestling, that can be very, very good.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

7812.226

I think sometimes when those guys come over to Jitsu specific events, they get leg locked, they fall into traps, overly aggressive or overly evasive. But I think the way they train just is perfect for a fight, a fight. They can just forward pressure, eat some shots, grind a guy against the wall. Fence wrestling is technical. Jiu-jitsu is far more technical.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

7833.999

There's way more things you can do in a grappling scenario from top and bottom than I think against the wall. So a grinding nature of how they train works really good to walk a guy down and take him down against the wall. And then obviously with ground and pound, very good to hold a guy down. So I think just never conceding an inch in training is just...

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

7856.104

They've done that since they were born, basically. So you learn how to grind somebody down. Yeah, like they're just trying to break each other at all times, trying to have some dominance over their friends and who they train with.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

7873.271

Not when you can pull guard and submit from your back. I think that sort of negates some of that grinding pressure. I think that has to be met with more slow technical lateral movement. I think that's the way you, like that would be the dream for me is a guy just comes straight forward into my guard. So that grinding approach works well if he's taken me down and got already close to me.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

7898.217

But if I'm laying flat on my back and he's standing and he has to engage, he has all that danger at range. But if he can connect to my body before we go down, now we're in his world again, I think.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

7922.476

We get him with a buggy, I reckon.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

793.863

But I don't know if I believe him.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

7934.306

Really? You can catch anyone. Really? Okay. You're not a buggy believer.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

7948.133

Khabib would go to sleep for sure.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

7950.363

Yeah. There's no way he would tap to a buggy choke. Who was it I faced recently? I faced a Russian guy from Tatar. I couldn't buggy him. I was trying the closed guard one, though. It is harder to pull off. I had to put him to sleep twice at the end of the match with a triangle, but he was just willing.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

7968.322

Like, I don't know, Eastern European guys, it's like, they're treating it like a real fight, you know?

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

7984.45

Have I, have I, have I? I mean, they do train hard. They do train hard. When I did the seminar in Odessa, it was at a school, but another school in the city brought, like, 10 Dagestani guys. All of them. Went insanely hard. Okay. I was like, guys. Okay. It's a small sample size, but they all wanted to be broken.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

8014.247

The art of it. I mean, I think obviously people are going to keep innovating, perfecting certain things, throwing out. Information, bad sort of techniques, bad sort of, but I mean, it's so hard to predict. It's like, that's the game of making money off the instructionals, is predicting where we go next. It's so, so difficult.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

8039.696

I think, actually, CGI, right? I think there's going to be a lot of guys that don't tap, that take injuries. A small concern is that a guy wins the match, but is so injured, he can barely go on to the next match. Win the battle, lose the war.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

804.283

I would say I'm very risk averse. You are. No, you're not. That's a lie. My relationship with risk, I like a bit of excitement. I like a bit of adventure. I'm more about the adventure, but I will not let the risk get in the way of it. And also, obviously, just go back from Ukraine. I'm happy to take a few risks if it's part of what the locals want me to do. You know what I mean?

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

8066.73

Because if they take one guy injured to hospital, we can't continue until an ambulance comes back. So these guys are going to go. Everyone will be Dagestani for a day. That's what I think this tournament will achieve. But progression, it'll just be the integration of wrestling into jiu-jitsu. I think that would be the most exciting way the sport could progress.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

8088.985

It's basically folk style wrestling, but an integration of submissions from the standing position too. If you just follow the rules of you should always be fighting to get on top, whether that's a submission that leads to a sweep or a sweep, and you should be trying to avoid being pinned.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

8107.409

And as long as the game revolves around that and guys engage each other offensively on the feet, that would be the most exciting, best way to watch the sport.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

8128.196

That looks like fighting versus guard stuff. I'm a guy that totally agrees with you, but if I think the guy's a better wrestler, I will concede. That's the hard part.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

8145.592

That's what the million should be. We should have a tournament or a round-robin thing where it's like the million goes to the most exciting man.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

8168.678

And forget about medals. Social media glory is all that matters.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

8199.068

Anyone that's ever beaten me. They're taking more steroids than me. I don't know. I wanted to test them, but not to do anything bad, but just in the name of science to see what people are running. It's so hard to say because you train with people and they don't even tell you. what they're on. I tell the world what I'm on and they go, look at you, you're not taking any steroids.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

8221.053

So it's like, it's like such a secret, secret thing. I personally think it's almost impossible to say, but occasionally you look at a guy and you're pretty certain, you know?

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

8243.965

It's a self-defense mechanism because you'd rather assume that that guy was on steroids than his genetics are so far superior to yours. You're like, no, it must be steroids.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

829.388

Like in Kazakhstan, we did some things that were dangerous. Like if the locals are like, come along, join in on this activity, I feel personally obligated to go with them. So it's not about the risk.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

8310.466

I think it was on the pulse too much.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

8316.948

I thought he was dead for a second, but for some strange reason, couldn't stop laughing.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

8321.029

I don't know. I was like, please wake up. There's something funny about it. I was like, his blood pressure is higher than mine. I hope that didn't cook him. Yeah, that would be quite sad. It's so crazy. To murder somebody. Yeah. He's probably the most just entertaining human being ever. He just says the crate like off air. He's always on.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

8344.693

It's like that's just, he's always ready to say some wild shit.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

8353.097

I somehow have never gone to sleep before. I went to sleep one time. Lachlan Giles was demonstrating a technique on me, but I woke up straight away. But for 10 seconds, I didn't know who I was, where I was, what I was doing. But that's it. That's the only time I went out. Didn't feel good, though. Some people say it feels good. Did not feel good. Because you were, like, what, panicked? Lost?

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

8371.751

Yeah, I just didn't know what was going on.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

8386.082

Some people push it too far. David Carradine, you know?

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

8395.349

Autoerotic asphyxiation.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

8420.59

That you can still make fun of anything, as long as it's funny. That's what I'm fighting for. People talk about cancel culture. I just think the joke wasn't funny enough.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

847.195

Sometimes the best adventures involve the most risk, unfortunately.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

858.082

To the front.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

863.445

How did you end up in Ukraine? So we're in Kazakhstan. We're doing some filming in Kazakhstan. And obviously, Borat's still a very traumatic memory for them. Yeah. And some of my jokes felt like they don't go as well in that neck of the woods. Mm-hmm. So we had some difficulty filming out there. So we filmed this horse game. Have you ever heard of Cockbar? Thanks to you, yes.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

883.474

It's a game, a very, very old game. They cut a goat or a sheep. I didn't get too close to look at it, but they cut its head and legs off and they use it as some form of bull. And then they'll have like up to a thousand guys on horses. violently trying to pick this up and drop it in the other end's goals, basically. The goals used to be concrete.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

903.127

Now it's just a tarp, but local business owners will throw down huge amounts of money for the winners. And these horses have been trained from a very young age. The riders have been trained. I've never ridden a horse before. We wanted to film something that made it look like I was going to go into the horse pit, into the cock bar pit. However, the drunk stuntman that we used

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

927.481

just decided that when he took my horse reins he would take me straight into the pit instead of ending the shot there so i was in there amongst i guess the horse riders the cock by riders and we weren't leaving we just were in there for quite a while and he was just he could talk a little he could talk english pretty well actually and he's like oh i thought you'd want to check it out from the inside and then while we're in there someone picked up

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

952.25

the sort of carcass and a wave of horse riders came at me. I was quite concerned at that point because they're bashing into each other. And obviously they're angry. They're seeing a foreigner in there. I was wearing like basically Biggie Smalls, Coogee, Geku looking sweater. So I stood out.

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

967.521

They definitely didn't like that I was participating in a game that they probably trained their whole life for. And that amount of money they could win is very, very significant. And there's me in there. They're also pointing out Borat, Borat, thinking I was making Borat jokes, which again- Very traumatic memory for the people of Kazakhstan. Were you making Borat jokes?

Lex Fridman Podcast

#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

985.922

No, but I guess it's the same type of humor. Sure. I guess I'm not pretending to be Kazakh. I'm just there being an idiot and enjoying the local culture. But we're over there in Kazakhstan. We did that. That was obviously a bit risky. Did they learn to love you? I think they learned to love me and then to hate me again.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

1015.976

Absolutely brutal. They can't make any noise or show any pain. No, that's the game. Like if they show any pain, they're sort of like failing their part of the test. They just have to eat it.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

1030.666

But again, it's like, it's to prove that they can endure the physical pain that would come with sex, which is.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

1040.492

Honestly, probably like as young as 12. So it's pretty heavy shit to watch. And it's boys and men as well, I'm going to guess. Yeah, full men just whipping them. And the girls are, like, giving them branches. And if the guy's, like, it's not thick enough, they're, like, insulted. And they just, like, run away. Like, the men are insulted. Like, fuck this branch, throw it away.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

1059.998

And the girls have to run and find a new one. But full, like, welted up backs and, like, just blood.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

107.199

I mean, I think it really couldn't have gone much better. You know, like it actually surprised me. Obviously, I had my personal assistant, Seth, take care of a lot of the more mundane activities in preparing us for the event. But yeah, everything went off without a hitch as far as I'm concerned. What did you think of the show?

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

1078.749

Yeah.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

1088.758

becomes of age yeah some of them had some serious scars on their back already from previous times doing this so that was like that was pretty heavy to witness and then we went to another tribe and this tribe was a tribe they didn't we didn't see this only happens once a year but this was like this was heavy when he was telling me about it like uh about the genital mutilation

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

1109.201

So they were telling me about how they remove like the clitoris and parts of the vagina so that the women would not enjoy sex. And again, that was like something mind-blowing to me because I just assumed they weren't meant to anyway. But they actually use things like anything they get their hands on. So some of the tribes don't have scissors. He's trying to keep it together.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

1128.062

We're talking about a heavy thing here, Chris. Scissors, glass, some tribes will have to use fingernails, like anything to basically mutilate so they don't experience the pleasure of sex, I think, to encourage in their minds. Chastity. Chastity, yeah. But I remember the guy, like, he gave me this big plug about that. And then he was like, but it's a celebration.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

1152.056

We kill a lot of animals that day and have a big feast. And I was like, oh, fuck, well, it's fine then, eh?

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

1171.855

Yeah, I mean, that's – yeah, that's pretty heavy to witness. It's just the scale of it. Like, I think if you haven't visited Africa, you don't understand the scale – of that really, that continent.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

1181.075

So it's like, just to see that within one country and how many people are in that country, the scale of a, would be the most affecting the, just the realization that you like pretty hard to make a difference out there. You know what I mean?

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

1193.945

Like, how are you going to, like, you see that tribe participating in that and it's like, you kind of would want that to not happen, but how are you going to intervene? You know what I mean? Like there were dudes rolling around with guns there and stuff. He was pointing his gun at me, pretending to shoot me and stuff. After Ukraine, that's just half of the course for you, right? Yeah, pretty much.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

1212.758

But yeah, I mean, it's definitely affecting, but it's pretty bleak. It gives you a bleak outlook on the world.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

1262.651

Yeah, I mean, yeah, that was just two tribes. I think there's like thousands and thousands of tribes just within Ethiopia. And then like what we learned when we were with the kids at the sort of the gym they've set up there that we matted out was that like there's this whole thing where

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#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

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guys will go to these tribes and either abduct kids or tell the family that they're going to bring the kids to the big city, give them an opportunity and send money or resources back. And really they just take them. And oftentimes they'll like, mutilate the kids or hurt the kids and force them to become beggars.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

1300.135

So the city's full of sort of like these escaped kids from the tribes and to make like, just how crazy it is, is it's like overran with hyenas. And there's actually quite another factor on that is there's quite a bit of corruption with the police. So the police, if they see any of these homeless kids sleeping, they come after them.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

1320.412

And if the homeless kids don't sleep in packs, the hyenas eat them, even in the capital city.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

1329.364

Yeah, I don't think they'll generally attack like an adult, but if they see a stray child, especially like a dehydrated or hungry, weak child, the hyenas will come for them. So the kids have to form these gangs to protect themselves from both hyenas and the police. And some of these kids were showing up to training.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

1346.174

So they generally sleep in the daytime because the police would give them less grief. And then at night, they'll be escaping the police in a hyenas.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

138.257

Day one was a marathon. That's for sure. Day two hit the sweet spot. I think for this next one, we're going to try and make both days a little shorter. I mean, like no matter how much you love something, 10 hours of it, unless it's a Colombian after party is a lot in my opinion.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

1443.531

Yeah. And Ethiopia is like Addis Ababa is quite like. I've flown through that. Yeah, it's quite there. There are some nice areas of that city. And there's definitely significantly worse parts of Africa.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

1478.002

Honestly, when I select matches, that's the type of opponent I would select myself. Someone who's been chased by a hyena for the last couple of weeks. Yeah, pretty much. No, the kids are awesome. They're trying to use jiu-jitsu to give them a foundation of discipline. And they're teaching them English at the same time. They have sort of a safe environment there.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

1497.409

But there were so many difficulties, even us filming there. Like, we were trying to film it. The Jiu-Jitsu Academy itself is within this apartment complex. And we were trying to film the kids' stories as they were speaking to the camera. And even the, like, guy that ran the apartment complex comes out being, like, asking, like,

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

1513.507

grilling us, asking us questions, interrupting the filming, not wanting us filming it. I don't want to say too much to get the guys back there in trouble. Obviously, they have to deal with a lot of corruption as well.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

1524.513

It's mind-blowing to thank Lake, who runs the program out there, for him to see his country and try to have a positive impact on it, despite the scale of problems they have to overcome. It's pretty mind-blowing.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

1539.501

What was the ketamine thing? Oh, right. So I won't tell you where we got it. Maybe I smuggled it in. But at one of the campfires when we were out of the tribes, right, we were obviously trying to entertain ourselves. Some of the stories you've told me off camera, for sure, we're trying to entertain ourselves. So we had this ketamine nasal spray.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

156.641

I mean, to be honest, my favorite part was the crowd turning positive on Gabby Garcia because she's been the villain the entire time. We made her the villain in the lead up. She's been the butt of the joke. And then like everyone's booed her whenever she's won. So then there was that heartfelt moment. I was quite happy for her to get that. That was cute.

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#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

1560.325

And we were sitting around this fireplace just being idiots. We were drinking the local moonshine. So I thought that'd be a cool experience, but it basically tasted like gasoline. The local guy was like, I'm going to go get you guys some of the moonshine. I was like, fuck, sick. Let's get drunk. And he came back, and it was in a plastic bottle, and it basically smelled like pure ethanol.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

1581.336

So I had to put that down. I wasn't going to turn it away. And then we busted out the ketamine nasal spray. And we were hitting that, obviously being quite reflective of the fireplace. And there was a dude there that had just left goat herding. Goat herding had been his thing for generations, his family's thing. Very proud of the culture of goat herding out there.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

1601.539

And he saw what we're doing being idiots. And he looked at the spray and he was like, he didn't even speak the same dialect as the guys were with, but definitely you see a face that's interested and wants to try something. He hits the ketamine and, um, he sat looking at the fireplace for two hours, not moving. And then the translator came out and this guy was like, never give that to me again.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

1626.935

And then 15 minutes later, he's like, he's like, pass that back. And then. How do you mean he'll do that to you? Yeah. It'll put you in a hole, put you in a dark place for you to come out of it. And then this guy basically gave us his speech to a translator afterwards, how he's had all these like visions. And he's like, he was working for the, I wouldn't even say it's a hotel.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

1645.545

There's really no electricity or anything. Like we're sleeping in some tents, but he would sort of cook for us. And he'd only just started doing this cooking role. And following the ketamine experience, he's like, I have to live. I have to return to my roots of goat herding. He's like, I'm going to cook you breakfast in the morning and then I'm out of here.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

1664.751

I've given a few people existential crisis with a few substances, but Ethiopian goat herder in the middle of the desert is definitely a first for me. Yeah, I mean, look, he's returned to his roots. I'm sure he's probably enjoying that more. I don't think the cooking life was for him.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

1682.057

Modern wisdom. That's what we're here for.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

1692.239

Probably a few large divorce settlements, I'd imagine.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

1698.702

Yeah, I mean, like, honestly, I don't know how I haven't ended up in a prison, really, in some of these travels.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

17.893

How are you? Good to see you, mate. I'm still alive, unfortunately.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

1708.506

The Teflon Don, you know, we're getting to airport security. Obviously, I look, I don't look suspicious at all. That's what I like to think, you know, but... I've managed to dodge it, but yeah, I know tons of people. Tons of British guys getting popped even recently in Dubai.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

1742.423

Yeah, yeah. You got to be careful in some of these countries partying.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

1772.076

It's very territorial. They defend the lane like the Southern border, basically.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

1845.261

What was the name of this place? So I can avoid it?

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

185.184

Yeah, it took, honestly, I don't know what it was. You might be able to imagine, but something about Columbia really struck at my heartstrings. Something about the culture down there. So I went back to see my family in Adelaide. They were quite surprised I survived Columbia and then basically went straight back to South America to continue the adventure.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

1876.295

I would say for sure. Yeah. We're pretty reckless as well. Definitely take some chances. I for one.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

1886.062

I think pretty representative. Yeah.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

1889.164

Yeah. Right.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

1892.646

Normal Bergen culture. Yeah.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

1900.391

Yeah. So, uh, Again, with the Guardian program, who's running these schools around the world for kids, we're building one in Peru because we visited, I wish I could remember the name of the city, but it's basically a surf spot. Peru has some of the best surfing in the world. So it's kind of like a bit of a tourist spot. So there's a lot of...

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

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foreign tourists coming in having a good time partying hitting the bars and hitting the surf spots and it's created a culture of like a lot of kids dealing drugs um in the poverty stricken areas around it so where i know it sounds uh a bit hypocritical but we're building a school down there they basically reach capacity as it is so we're trying to build a bigger facility for them to expand so they can take in more kids but like some i mean peru

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

1944.272

The poverty was really quite severe, quite shocking. I think most people just go there, visit Machu Picchu, Lima, get out of there. But we went up to the Northwest and yeah, the poverty was real bad. Like lack of clean drinking water, lack of opportunities. So through jujitsu, teaching the kids discipline and they teach them English, provide them clean drinking water.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

1963.917

The new facility will provide them food as well. Hope it can at least make a difference within that little city.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

1980.363

Yeah.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

1981.664

Basically, yeah.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

1986.909

I would say I was the victim of the Gabby Garcia thing, truth be told. But there have been many victims of Gabby Garcia, as I've told you off camera. But yeah, I mean, it does feel good to make a change like that. And I'm trying to change the narrative a bit on charity. Because most of the time, people tune in to watch some sort of charity documentary. It's almost like...

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

2011.428

sadness, porn or something. You know what I mean? Where it's, and then the talking at the heartstrings, making you feel bad, here's some guilt. And then there's the guy that's like almost the, the savior too good to be true type character.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

2022.374

So I'm trying to balance it out by at least providing some entertainment value, some realness, and most importantly, going to these areas where kids are selling drugs and buying those drugs so that they don't have, Oh, that's where the money goes. That, yeah, that is actually, um, tax deduction, I believe. Right. To reinvest into the local community. Reinvest into the community. Okay.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

2043.2

And improving exports.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

206.769

We went to Brazil. We went to Argentina. We went back to Colombia. And I was back in Colombia for a good five to six weeks. But this time instead of Cartagena, straight into Medellin. Okay.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

2062.612

I wish I could. So does his family. But yeah, obviously, as you know, I'm an incredible judge of character and I've never made any mistakes hiring or associating with people in the past. So it is very difficult. Luckily Guardian really, um, chooses the right person. Cause again, like you're running a charity program for kids. You gotta be very careful. Discerning.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

2082.609

You gotta be very careful who you put in charge of those kids, you know? So it's like, it's very, I would say that is more difficult than like, um, than any other part of the process is finding the right person for the job. Yeah.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

2150.301

I mean, even just helping one kid. Once you go down there, you meet the kids. Obviously, some of the kids are really talented, charismatic, and you see them and you think, oh, with a little bit of help, maybe they have a chance to change their life. But on the flip side of that, if kids drop out of the program that you're aware of, that's going to be quite devastating as well.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

2175.532

Yeah, so we went to Brazil. We did a clothing release with Street X, and it was basically Brazil themes, and we were basically trying to take some cool photos and videos.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

2185.955

So we were trying to recreate the Gracie origin story back in the day where the Gracies would go to – there's a famous video of Hicks and Gracie going to the beach and slapping this dude that had been talking shit, and then they brought him to the beach. Our version of that was to go to the beach –

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

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get extremely drunk with the local bartenders and then have challenge matches against the bartenders. And that was, that was our reincarnation of it. And then the bar, we were trying to get into the favelas, you know, you want to see, you want to see the favelas. I've heard so much about them, wild places. So we, I just trusted this bartender. This guy was like, oh, you want to go to the favelas?

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

2222.439

Oh, we'll take you. Drunk at the time, we agreed to do this. Next day, picks us up, takes us into the, one of the favelas.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

2229.986

drops us right at the top on the way out we had to stop filming you know let it fill any of the dudes with guns you know they take photos with the guns despite me asking many many times and they have some fucking impressive weaponry up there even like rpg launchers to take out police helicopters and stuff and remember we get to the top of the hill he drops us off at the very top turn around there's a guy with a gun and he's like looking at us

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

223.844

I did. And this is actually a weird story. So I put up a post. I think I actually made quite an insensitive post. I was using the cocaine sunglasses to pour some powder, a prop onto Pablo's grave, like one for the fallen homies, you know, but a guy messaged me on Instagram and he's like, do you want to meet the sister? And I was like, you're full of shit for sure.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

2254.548

And he basically, the local bartender introduced us. And then he saw the cauliflower areas and was like, oh, jujitsu, jujitsu. And he is like, I competed in the last world championships when it used to be held in Brazil. So we got the free pass from there. And then I realized behind him, this was the motorcycle pickup point for all the drug pickups for people making orders. Right.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

2277.18

And he goes, oh, do you want anything? And I was like, I went to say, obviously, yes. And he's like, no, you're a jujitsu athlete. Not for you. Okay.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

2292.733

Yeah.

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#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

2294.734

We were like the ketamine goat herdsmen at that point, you know, back to our jujitsu roots. Yeah. But I mean, we had the free pass. I mean, I think it's, it's a lot safer and like the guys were quite insistent on wanting us to show that the favelas can be safe, you know, cause they just have such a bad name. So they're quite appreciative when you show the favelas in a positive light.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

2316.865

Cause it's not. it's not as bad as people think. Like really when we were walking around up there, we realized there are safe points, like especially this one favela, I forget the name, but it overlooks basically the Rio coastline. And it's like, The favelas have a bad name. Obviously, some of them deserve that.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

2331.676

But for the most part, the people up there were super cool, super welcoming, super nice.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

2341.359

Yeah. And at the very tip, near the very top, I would say there's some clubs and some restaurants that are probably pretty tourist friendly. But as you do the walk down, you kind of need someone there with you. So he'd given us this kid... That must have been 15 who threw the red shirt over the shoulder, which was the signal to the people above that don't rob these guys, I assume.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

2365.402

Because we had some expensive camera equipment with us.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

2389.972

Yeah, I mean, we have the content. We have a lot of it out there, but, I mean, mostly just social media. You know, like, unfortunately, I would say people like you have ruined the YouTube experience where it used to be incredible vlogs, cinematography, well, artistic sort of things, and then it's just been taken over by... White guys talking.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

24.008

And I think I left you at a strip club around 7 a.m.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

2409.679

By the podcast gods who have gamed the algorithm for maximum ad revenue. But yeah, so I mostly use it for socials or photos, things like that. Memories when I struggle to remember them. What about Venezuela? Yeah, so Venezuela was another interesting destination. Obviously, sanctioned country. U.S. citizens can't visit there.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

2430.674

Yeah, U.S. citizens are not allowed to visit there.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

2438.53

I think America's sanctions on Venezuela have caused Venezuela to basically block you. I think there is a path, but it's a very difficult path for US citizens to get into. So just the sheer thought of a country without Americans, I was like, sold. That sounds brilliant. That sounds like a peaceful oasis. So I set up sort of a charity seminar down there.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

2462.242

And the jiu-jitsu scene was actually quite big. So we went down there and pretty heavy experience when you get to the airport and stuff. Where did you fly from? I flew from Medellin. I think it was straight off to Medellin. I think I went up to Cartagena again, say hello to some old friends, and then flew straight from Medellin to Venezuela airport.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

247.937

You know, you get one of those DMs. But then he sent me a picture of a large quantity of a substance that made me assume that he was the real deal. So I ventured off down to meet him on a Saturday night in Columbia. And he showed me some pictures with the sister. And later that week, we went out for dinner. She took us on a bit of a tour of Pablo's old house.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

2482.695

And I had some guys on the ground that were helping me out, but it's bizarre. The airport security, the immigration part of it is like, Obviously, all the Venezuelans are going through. And then I'm just standing there alone for two hours while they're using WhatsApp to message the security people to work out whether they want to detain me or not.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

2502.346

And I assume they probably looked at my Instagram and thought, this guy's a fucking idiot. He's not going to do any harm. Let him in. And then we went on a bit of an adventure there. We went out to Angel Falls, World's Tallest Waterfall. Beautiful experience out there. We stayed at a lovely resort, taken care of pretty damn well.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

2519.656

The only thing is that obviously my friends and family, Venezuela is typically a pretty dangerous country. I think 10 million people fleed it over the last X amount of time. Obviously a lot of Venezuelan immigrants getting around and it has a bad reputation. So when I went to Angel Falls, I had already smashed my phone in a drunk incident. And I remember being like, oh, iPhones are waterproof.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

2546.032

So we're walking through waterfalls and shit. I was starting to film. Phone died and I'm like, I was off the grid for three days with people just not knowing where I was, if I was okay, what happened? I think I got an SOS signal out there at some point to say everything was all good.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

2561.439

And then my cameraman met me at a later date in Venezuela and we're able to get basically a communication with the outside world. Reacquainted.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

2580.689

I'm sorry. I was getting calls from somewhere else. Oh, I see. Yeah, we had a companion send out SOS signals. I mean, I was okay. Seth had to get me a new phone and get it hand-delivered to me, I think at a later location. And then again, it was another location I brought Volkanovski's coach, Joe Lopez, to. You brought him to Venezuela? Brought him to Venezuela. Fantastic.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

2603.994

And he, again, any excuse for him to use his Spanish on unsuspecting women. Yep.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

2609.488

that is like the bat signal for him he will arrive and uh yeah we had a bit of a blowout the last night was good what's venezuela like generally i mean honestly one of the most beautiful if not the most beautiful country i've ever seen in my life incredible angel falls area amazing at the north um along the the coastline there some of the most beautiful coastline in the world

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

2630.68

I think it's a tragedy that it doesn't have a tourism industry for Americans because it's so close. But yeah, I would say, and I'm not just saying this to offend Americans that can't visit there, but it is the most beautiful country I've ever been to.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

2653.838

Yeah. And this is, you know, what's funny is I got cleared for global entry. I don't know how. Like, if you looked at my part, Ukraine, Venezuela, like, whatever it is, the test, it's not working. Because I passed the initial stage, but I had to have the interview. And I just left Colombia and Venezuela. And they forced me to do the interview at that border entry.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

2675.396

And the guy was like, oh, yeah, pass. And I was like, you think you'd leave a sanctioned country? I'm really testing the limits. I do have a tattoo reveal for you.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

2685.575

Yeah. I'm really testing the limits of US deportation here. Okay. And really it's based on the idea that really there is an avenue out there for an all expenses paid trip to the beautiful country of El Salvador. And it just comes at the small price of a tattoo.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

270.625

And then we got hammered together on red wine. And everything was going good until I tricked her into putting the sunglasses on for a photo. And then we explained to her what the sunglasses were for. And it took a bit of a turn, but still we. Why? What happened then? I mean, obviously she's not into the heritage of the Escobar name, you know?

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

2712.808

Oh, you want me to get it out? Yeah. Marvel at the size of the quad, too. Thank you, Pierce. You got the connections, though, if I get sent El Salvador.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

2726.999

Yeah, well, I mean, we need to pull in some government favors on that deportation when they come for me.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

2733.903

And I was a bold choice. We were just down in Mexico the other day, and I thought it'd be a funny idea. And then you got your feet tattooed. Yeah, that was a mistake, honestly. Here was my vision, right? In jiu-jitsu, people often criticize guard pullers, people that scoot on their butt along the ground, right?

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

2749.454

And they'll always do this, stand up, stand up like you're a man if you can wrestle, right? So then I had the idea that, oh, lay flat on my back. It says, fuck you. I stole this tattoo idea off a guy that trains at Scrappy MMA and just... Didn't credit him at all. He had it as well?

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

2766.902

I was waiting to share at Scrappy where Jack Della trains and this guy comes up to me in the hallway and goes, check this out. And I was like, that's fucking genius. So when I was in Perth, I was like, if I could get the same tattoo. That was one of the most painful experiences of my entire life. And it didn't heal. It was the dumbest idea ever. Jack Della's fighting for the belt.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

2787.523

And I'm like, oh, if I can get my feet tattooed. So then I had to train with him for his title where my feet were in excruciating pain healing. I was at a bad spot. Usually the tattoo is the worst part. This was like, the tattoo was very fucking bad. But the healing process was significantly worse. Why? We're just walking on it all the time, you know?

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

2809.15

Yeah, and I'm not going to be like, oh, sorry, Jack. I can't help you prepare because I'm a fucking idiot. You know what I mean?

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

2816.377

So I just kept taping it up, putting socks on and training.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

2822.463

Yeah, that's one of the worst decisions of my life and that says a lot.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

2828.271

Yeah, we'll see how that goes. Breaking news. First Australian man in El Salvadorian prison.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

2834.877

Fuck. I got it in Mexico too, which I was a bit... I was in Nuevo Laredo, which is not the safest place. And I remember being like, should I be getting... Another gang's tattoo in Mexico. But the guy thought it was hilarious, so we're good.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

2869.888

I mean... I don't know. I just get bored in a place. Like if I'm in a place too long, I just get a bit stir crazy, want to go somewhere else. Someone sends me a message, there's an opportunity, an adventure. I like the idea of an adventure. Maybe it's a midlife crisis. I don't know, but I do love living out of a suitcase and just being able to travel.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

2888.826

I think it's a totally different experience if you're staying at hostels. I think that's the vision people have living out of a suitcase to a European backpacking trip or South American backpacking. Yeah. But if you can afford a semi-decent hotel, it's actually, it's not too bad.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

2910.294

Carrying a fucking massive suitcase around the entire time. That's where, that's where Seth, again, the personal assistant comes in. He meets me in destinations for wardrobe changes and Xanax resupplies. That's basically keeps me, keeps me going. It's hard to pack full climates, you know? Hard to fit a gay cowboy hat in there, too. That's true. That's true.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

2938.164

CGI2 is back August 30, 31 in Vegas, Thomas Mac Events Center. This time we're mixing it up. I think the first event, we won that battle. We proved sort of that jiu-jitsu can be exciting. Might have to fight a woman to do it, but yeah. It can be. That's what lured you in. You heard about me finding a woman. You were like, I'm there.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

296.453

The family empire. Yeah. I was, I was grilling her on a lot of questions about Pablo, but obviously a lot of the notorious nefarious activities were shielded from the family life.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

2970.227

Honestly, the worst thought I had when I saw the women getting whipped was really like, I want to be like, guys, we can do this emotionally. I was going to teach them about gaslighting. I was like, save your shoulders. You need stem cells in Columbia. Yeah. Yeah, CGI2 will be a team's event. So the most exciting event I've ever participated in was a Japanese event called Quintet.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

2991.666

Did they make it up?

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

2995.929

Kazushi Sakuraba, famous Japanese MMA fighter. And it was his contribution to grappling. And it's sort of an iteration of a wrestling meet where guys are fighting off of different divisions. But it had the last man standing sort of dynamic to it. And I didn't just want to do CGI1, same format again. Obviously, we gave away $2 million. It was fucking expensive.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

3017.947

I thought, how can we cheapen out a bit on this event? And I was like, all right, team's event, $1 million prize pool. Because really, a lot of people... CGI1 sort of showed who the two best athletes in the world were. And there's a lot of contention about really who's the best team in the world. So I was like, let's try and do real teams...

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

3036.863

You pick your five best guys, five sort of ADCC Olympic divisions, and we'll do a last man standing style event. And we're going to add in, we're obviously heavily inspired by quintet. Quintet would ban heel hooks. MMA fighters are terrified of leg locks. I don't know why they always do that. So leg locks are allowed for us. And we're borrowing, obviously, from wrestling.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

3060.949

So Royal Rumble style entries, entrances. So it's basically like when we do quintet, the team lineup would already be predetermined. So you kind of like, last man standing, like you submit your opponent, you know who's next. We're going to leave that a mystery. So the coach on the sideline can basically be like, he's got to get submitted. He's like, oh, send in. This guy. Yeah.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

3082.624

And it's going to be like, It's going to be a big impact for the crowd. It'll be like, oh my God. Who's coming next?

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

3090.633

Yeah. So like we'll basically be the ADCC weight division. It's like you take your five best guys, we take our five best guys and we'll see it. So it'll be eight teams matched up over two days. I'll be competing as well, unfortunately. I'll be facing a character that somewhat resembles Gabby Garcia, I would say. That would be Gable Steveson.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

310.766

Yeah, I think that's actually something that she was trying to clarify me. And the guy that sort of helped connect us as well was Pablo's old driver. And they were trying to clarify that the large stacks of cash where people are talking about like,

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

3113.067

Olympic gold medal wrestler. American wrestler. He would be 125 kilos or, for the unintelligent, 265 pounds. Massive size discrepancy. I think I'm weighing like... Man, real light right now. It's been a tumultuous couple of months, you know, we skipped a few meals.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

3134.798

Yeah. I mean, part of that is handicapping myself because I am facing a wrestler and wrestlers, all they have is takedowns. Once he hits the floor, they have no idea what the fuck's going on. And we basically, we've tried to prove that when Volkanovski out grappled Islam Makachev. and Jack Della out grappling Bilal Muhammad. Australian Jiu-Jitsu trumps all forms of wrestling.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

3159.497

We've found the cue or the antidote. So really, for me, I'm going to face off against this giant, absolute giant human being who only has wrestling. And what's the rule set? Three by five minute rounds. Okay. One minute break in between. All submissions legal. He's going into a career in MMA in the future. Oh, he's pivoting? He's pivoting, yeah. Okay.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

3183.211

So it should be a fun one if my spine doesn't get broken. I'm really testing the boundaries here. of insulting his lifelong work of wrestling, tearing apart wrestling, and some slight racial innuendo jokes in there as well. So, like, I'm scared he's going to snap one of these days and actually do some damage to me. He seems like a good sport. Yeah, he has been an excellent sport so far.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

3207.583

We're going to release it soon, but we just recreated the Dirty Dancing scene together. Me lifting him, obviously. Ha!

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

324.246

what was holding the cash together was disintegrating and stuff was like largely a myth that most of the cocaine transactions were for land or for houses. So I believe they did get to keep a lot of the proceeds of that.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

3273.777

Yeah, I mean, yeah. Everyone was, UFC's on the decline. Too many boring ass wrestlers taking over the division. So UFC basically called me and they said, hey, like, can you help us out? Can you... help Jack Della beat Bilal Muhammad. And we just fixed his wrestling overnight. So now we've got exciting strikers taking the belts. What's the strategy? How do you beat wrestling?

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

3297.537

I mean, first of all, you're not going to have the most intelligent human being in the sport of wrestling. Like some of us articulate, uh, high social skills, people in jujitsu. You know what I mean? It's basically jocks versus autistic people. We're going to win the war. You know what I mean? And, uh, Really, it's just they have the takedown. They have the initiation, but they have no follow-up.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

3320.306

They're confused. It's like a dog chasing a car. They don't know what to do once they get it. In wrestling, they get the pin. It's over. The referee saves them. They stand back up. That's where jiu-jitsu takes off. So it's a huge hole in their game. We'll forget about American folk style wrestling completely, and we'll just talk about the broader type of wrestling.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

3337.935

But yeah, for me, it's not a big problem. Get taken down. That's what we take over.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

3344.329

sit down so sit is sitting down a solution yeah I mean that's that's kind of the joke of the sport imagine if you spent your whole life dedicated to an art where the goal was to take the other person down but you never spent any time thought or effort into thinking what you'd do if the fight continued on the ground that's the most funny humiliating thing to me about the sport of wrestling so how do you think a fight with Gable Steveson is going to go like just roll the clock forward for me roll the clock forward um

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

3373.985

Again, handicapping myself, I've decided to not train for this match. Just like I didn't train for the Gabby Garcia match. Show the same level of respect for both Goliath opponents there. And really, I'm just going to come out, sit down. He's going to come forward. Well, first of all, he's going to just be like, if he could read, he'd be angry. You know what I mean? But he's a wrestler.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

3394.483

So he's going to see that feet. He's going to be trying to read it. A bit confused. Maybe a bit aroused. Comes forward. and gets leg locked straight away. That's basically my vision. And, uh, I'll try and show some mercy here, you know, like, um, we've done a lot of damage this year to wrestling Americans in general as well.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

3413.633

So maybe we let him out of a few, but we'll definitely, we'll definitely take him out.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

3426.227

Well, that's, I mean, that's part of the training protocol. You know, we're finding heavier and heavier dating partners to feel the experience of being under such a heavy creature. And I know you've pointed me in the right direction at some bars in Austin where we'd find those.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

343.013

She says no. Brilliant PR move. You know what I mean? Like the government's not coming for that land if they don't think you have it. They're just looking for that buried cash. Oh yeah, that is interesting.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

3444.551

But yeah, basically he's like a giant athletic woman that can do hands down backflips. He can do some athletic maneuvers. So unless he, unless he in the midst of trying to read for the first time falls over. All right. I see.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

3475.765

I don't know, but the feet will definitely throw out. Spanner in the works room, I think.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

3489.501

competition this time around so it'll be easier to get more teams more people more spectators etc yeah so like last year we went head-to-head we were mildly offended by petty things the owner said so we decided to host an event the same day on someone else's uh with someone else's money which is always the best tactic as you know at newtonic but really the fallout was i think we decisively won but this is a good opportunity actually

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

35.318

Oh, shit. I mean, we went to Cartagena, Colombia and went on a five-day bender, pretty much. Came out very unhealthy, but survived it.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

3517.068

ADCC is on Flow Grappling and I have just signed, I would say, and it's not saying much, the most lucrative contract in grappling history to now join forces and essentially take over Flow Grappling. So it's kind of a corporate takeover. So Flow Grappling hosted ADCC. They had the subscribers. I went on a malicious onslaught of an attack against ADCC and as a result, Flow Grappling as well.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

3546.257

We tore them down to a point of vulnerability, and now the only person they could call for help was me, essentially a corporate takeover. And now they've basically given me the reins to save Grappling.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

3560.354

Um, I can't talk too much about it. Uh, Flow Grappling usually is a, like, it's a streaming platform to host events and original content. CJ, I will remain free on YouTube. I mean, I'm basically gonna run the operation now. We're gonna fix the damage we did. We're gonna try and get the fan base back.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

3579.862

Exactly. Sounds like my dating life as well, really, but, um.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

358.071

I did unintentionally get drugs. So like, obviously, so to set up the story, obviously we're there on a bender, but I went down there for four or five weeks and like all my friends that hit me up being like, you're in Columbia, I'll come down. And it's like, when you live in a tourist spot, people are like, they want to do all the tourist shit when you come down.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

3585.144

The gaslighting coming back. Yeah, nah, but we're working, we're working together with Flow now, you know, because there are, uh, big enterprises trying to enter the sport of grappling and they're trying to lock athletes down to exclusive contracts. Again, like they're going to try to monopolize the sport of grappling and grapplers where there's barely $3 to throw together as it is.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

3608.237

If this big organization were to, uh, monopolize the sport of grappling, the athletes themselves would lose the leverage for negotiations and getting their true value from the different events out there. Like obviously we've got one championship as well. The big three would be one championship, flow grappling, and UFC fight boss, right?

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

3630.058

So if one of these were to take over completely and create a monopoly, then they would not have any incentive to pay the athletes more.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

3640.995

Yeah. Or even put more effort into the spectacle of grappling. Like my thoughts are if fake grappling is one of the most entertaining things in the world, WWE, why can real grappling not be that? And I believe that's the root of professional wrestling was they used to actually have real matches, but it was too boring for the fans to watch. So they decided to have real matches behind the scenes and

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

3666.294

And then the winner of that would determine the winner of the professional show. No way. Yeah. And so we were trying to steal, I want to steal the theatrics. Obviously Vince McMahon, personal hero of mine. I'm really trying to steal what he did for professional wrestling minus his personal life and bring that to the sport of jiu-jitsu.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

3685.33

And I think if we borrow from professional wrestling with a spectacle, even in the history of MMA, like in Japan, they used to have an event called Pride. Pride ultimately got shut down because of Yakuza connections, but they used to put on an incredible spectacle of an event. They used to put a lot of effort into the production, into creative ideas to hype an event.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

3705.436

So me being the promoter of this event, I'm trying to push the envelope in creating excitement in the event. And I'm worried that if any one of these organizations were to get a monopoly, well, then there's really no reason for them to push the envelope of the events, athlete pay, because they've already controlled the market.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

3733.257

I mean, here's the thing. Anything's exciting if there's a storyline. So the more we invest in the story, whether it's fake or real, the more we get people invested in each of the individual athletes or the teams or whatever, the more excited you are going to be. to watch it take place.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

375.396

So like every time a new friend comes down, they put my body through the ringer. But those last two weeks, I tried to pace myself for a bit of survival. And then again, my personal assistant, Seth, he came down there exploiting my name for some stem cells at a stem cell company because they get the real shit down there in Columbia. So he comes down and we decide to hit the main strip.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

3751.138

Like there's been some boring MMA fights and boxing fights out there, but the hype has been so good that even though, even when you're watching the live event, you're sort of on the edge of your seat. So as long as we invest in the storyline and build up the event, CGI had a, CGI one had a huge benefit because it's, It was, the story was basically CJI versus ADCC.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

3773.22

So we created this division and people were invested in picking a side. So we need to leverage storylines like that to invest people's time and energy into actually watching the event, whether the match is exciting or not.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

3846.536

Yeah. And really, I mean, like that would be one angle of really why I'm trying to fight these exclusive contracts is like Taka versus Cade Rotolo is one of the most exciting matches in history. If both these guys get locked down to exclusive contracts, we may never see that rematch. But in terms of making grappling exciting, yeah, that is a tall order to do.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

3866.118

But I believe the quintet format is what will make it exciting. The last man standing style where we have teams, right? Because if there's inactivity in jiu-jitsu, it's boring. When nothing's happening, it's boring. However, imagine like, because it's going to be different weight divisions. Imagine it's Nicky Rod versus a smaller guy like Fabrizio Andre. So there's a massive weight discrepancy.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

3889.917

But when you're taking the weight of the team on your shoulders as that smaller guy, Suddenly him surviving, simply surviving against the bigger opponent now becomes exciting. So I think we can, what Sakuraba did that made Quintet so exciting is you can create a style of rules that somewhat makes the boring parts exciting. Just survival might mean that your team wins this series.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

3918.79

So we're trying to reinvent that. Sort of how grappling's viewed to even make those boring parts exciting.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

3927.203

So we've got Atos, New Wave, Tenth Planet, B Team, Pedigo. And then we decided just due to the difficulty, like there's a lot of teams out there, but they might not be able to fill five divisions. We decided to add in three region-based teams. So the Americas, Australia and Asia, and Europe and the UK.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

3952.456

So sort of those will be filled with region-based guys because it was about making sure that we get all the good athletes in there. Because if a lot of teams, like say a classic example would be Levi, who made it to the final against... Blue guy? Blue hair? The blue hair guy against Cade Rotolo last year. He trains at my old team, Absolute MMA. It'd be tough for them to put in five guys.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

397.64

And usually I would stay at the house, we'd get obliterated, and then we'd adventure out into the streets of Medellin and see what we could find, right? But this night we went out just for a couple casual cocktails because, of course, you have stem cells. You're not meant to drink. You're meant to stay healthy. So we're actually on the main street of Columbia and Seth had stem cells in his neck.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

3973.667

So we're like, well, we don't want to lose a guy like Levi. So we're going to have region-based teams.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

3983.151

Yeah.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

3987.652

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So they have to come together and... basically take on these powerhouse team names. And then one other thing we threw in there was kind of like this idea of a wildcard. Because really there were maybe two or three teams in the world that would have five contenders at each weight division.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

4.75

Well, I think we start pretty similar by messaging five different women we miss. Are we recording? I hope that's in. Cut that in.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

4005.151

So we said to each team, listen, we need four of your guys to be authentic members of your team, but you can pull in a wildcard. So it's like we're still keeping to the team versus team nature. Some of it's region-based, but also you can pull in a wildcard. And we exploited that fully. Who's your wildcard? Victor Hugo, who's one of the biggest, best guys in the sport today. So we exploited that.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

4030.554

We exploited that. I mean, we told all coaches out there early that, hey, you can pull in a wildcard. We just got ahead of them. We jumped on Victor straight away.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

4045.114

Yeah. So we had our falling out. We had the Danaher death squad, which I jumped aboard sort of late to the party, which was Eddie Cummings, Gary Tonin, Gordon Ryan, Nikki Ryan, Nikki Rod. I jumped in. I tore that team apart piece by piece from the inside, turning everyone against each other to exploit that into an opportunity to create the B team, which we have here today. And yeah,

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

4070.728

That's obviously left a bad taste in John Danaher's mouth, but in the effort of getting them in the event, because for CGI1, they supported ADCC instead. They were going after the legacy medals, and they did very good at ADCC. I will say it was a bit of an easy ADCC. We took most of the guys, but we've managed to put our differences aside for the greater good.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

4091.825

So New Wave will be submitting a team. Me and Gordon, on the other hand, have not put our differences aside, but John Danaher is El Jefe. He's the boss over there. So me and him have reconnected.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

4106.551

That was good. I've, I've ran into him a couple of times, but we never had a full conversation, but yeah, it was definitely good to make the past the past. You know what I mean? Like, uh, part of that conversation was Craig, you took things a little too far. I'll be like, I'm guilty of fucking around sometimes, you know? Um, but when we had the conversation, yeah, he, we're friends again for sure.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

4132.345

I mean, I've got a special cock chair waiting for him there in the audience. So like, I think that's, that's going to pull him in, you know, that's going to call him.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

4142.79

The, the porcelain throne will be there waiting for him.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

4150.66

I think he'll be there. I think ultimately, as much as you hate me, you should love your teammates more. And he is a great team member, great training partner, in my opinion, horrible human being. But in an effort to support his training partners, I imagine he'll want to give them the best opportunity to win and his presence and coaching ability.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

4174.082

As far as I know, he's never going to compete again. Yeah, and although I don't like the guy, great competitor, drew in the fans, sad to see him leave. And although I persistently harassed and bullied his teammate, Nicholas Merigali, who competed at ADCC, ultimately lost. He got injured in the process of losing. It is sad to lose two of those guys to the sport.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

418.77

So I definitely positioned him with his sort of back towards the crowd and his stiff neck every time I pointed at an attractive Colombian woman who's in paralysis trying to turn around. And then, so I don't know who drugged me, but have you heard about the drug scopolamine, the devil's breath? No. You haven't heard of it? No. All right. So basically there's a substance.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

4198.986

Nicholas Merigali's shoulder injury is going to keep him out for quite a long period of time. What did he have happen to him? So after posting many pictures saying he's going to be the champion, he's going to win double gold, attacking everyone else, criticizing everyone else, he got defeated by a blue belt. Was it a blue belt? Actually, take that back.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

4221.357

He got defeated by a purple belt, but in the process of the hip toss, he posted his arm on the ground, destroyed everything in his shoulder. Really, really bad injury. I think, unfortunately, a couple of the surgeries, difficult thing to come back from. Might need a trip to Columbia with some stem cells.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

4240.315

Devil's breath. Yeah. We could all use some devil's breath one time at a time, but really, yeah, he's out for a while too, so we can't have him in the next CGI. I mean, most of it's theatrics, you know? I just like, first of all, I like picking on Mary Giley because English is second language. She's coming in unequipped. Gordon...

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

4259.835

Easy target, most American human being on earth, you know what I mean, with the banter. So it is sad to lose them, not just from the banter perspective and the insult perspective, but they are great athletes and it would have been great to have them participate. People think I have a vendetta, I'm vindictive.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

4278.183

There's only, and I won't say his name, there's only one person that can't compete in CGI 2, but I don't give a fuck what you've said about me, anything. Kiss the ring. Kiss a few things and we'll put you in the event.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

4304.192

Where do we want to end up? I mean, my goal was just to grow the sport. You know what I mean? Like, I've put so much effort into this sport. I've humiliated myself. I've been injured. I've wasted my life on jiu-jitsu mats, talking to people that can't hold a conversation. So I want this to amount to something. So I failed as an athlete. So the pivot would be as a promoter.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

4322.141

And we had some enemies that have now become friends for the first event. We have some, I wouldn't say enemies, but some big challenges coming up for the second event in terms of, I think... I contributed to the sport of jiu-jitsu in a way that brought so much attention and eyes to that one competition that now we've got some sharks circling, trying to take it over and monopolize it.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

4342.139

So for me now it's kind of a battle to make sure that we don't end up being monopolized and just some other product on the shelf. So really it's like a, for me now it's to ensure that there's a viable opportunity

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

4356.431

event that doesn't have exclusive contracts that just wants the best athletes in the world to participate put on a spectacle exciting sell out for the fans and that they have that alternative but surely there's only so there's going to be what five people that win ultimately which means that there's going to be 40 people that don't win

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

4383.436

Me being the man that's never won anything, I would say losing is just a marketing pivot. You know, it's how you, it's not, it's not winning or losing the matters. It's how you lose, how you sell that loss. So really, I mean, obviously great opportunity for exposure. I don't want to just be talking about, uh, we're paying them an exposure, but everyone last year we paid.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

4402.25

Everyone $10,001 to show up this year, $10,002 to show up. So for the athletes, that sadly is a significant amount of money for a lot of them. Jiu-jitsu is like a top-heavy payment structure, but there are organizations out there that will overcompensate the top of the bill and severely underpay the bottom part.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

4422.984

So really, for me, it's like protecting the next generation of athletes that might get caught up in the allure of being attached to big organizations and let that blind them from

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

443.615

It's kind of mythical in its nature because it quite often is guys heading to a strip club or something. And what happens is they wake up with no money in their account. So it's a bit of a, it's a great boogeyman of a story for the missus. Oh no, it was the devil's breath. I must've been drugged. So like, I think it's largely exaggerated, but still a lot of people die down there.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

4458.482

I mean, that's the thing, really. It's like everything I do is completely self-interested, selfish, and for my own benefit. But when it comes to a talk show, we can sell it anywhere we want. Let's repurpose that.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

4475.474

Yeah, which is, I might pivot into politics too, run against it.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

4490.613

Interesting character, yeah. He's the coach of the Misfits team for America. So he's putting together an American squad. So, like, I mean, I haven't gone too much into this. It's a difficult conversation to listen to, you know, people talking about different learning models in jiu-jitsu. But, yeah, I believe from my understanding he's –

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

4509.815

thought process is that you don't need to be just doing static repetitive drilling and understand and like being taught techniques. He's sort of given the credence over to the people's ability to solve problems themselves with, through the positional sparring.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

4523.523

So, I mean, I don't think, I think the way, just like we do with CJR1, the way we sell is to create division and create size for people to choose on, choose to be on. And a lot of hipsters will choose to be on the unorthodox side of things. So it's like, I think basically a balance of the two is usually the best approach here.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

4544.345

But I believe his persistence in his argument is making people re-evaluate how they teach. So I think ultimately he's a good influence on the sport.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

4579.167

Yeah, I would say that most jiu-jitsu coaches aren't actually coaches. They're just instructors. They show moves. Whereas a coach would be something different. And that's something I sort of realized being involved in MMA camps is that like... A coach doesn't necessarily need to be better than the person they're training.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

4596.665

And jiu-jitsu has this historical thought process where the better the competitor was, they assume that he's going to be a better instructor or coach for them. And I think that's sort of like a bit of a fallacy where like some of the best guys teaching boxing, even wrestling, weren't necessarily the best competitors. But they have a great way to break things down.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

4618.753

John Danner would be one of the best coaches ever. no history of jujitsu competition. So I think that's a massive flaw in the sport of jujitsu. But I personally would say that like, uh, in the early stages, you need You need to understand those moves. You need to be taught those moves. And then ultimately, as we get to the higher level, I believe problem solving for yourself is much better.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

4642.333

Because if I give you the answer, quite often I think people forget it. But if I create a situation in which you figure out a solution, you remember it. And I always say to guys, I'm like, look at the people leading this sport and how dumb we are. They can, if they can figure it out, you can figure it out. You know what I mean? Like come to me with a.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

465.103

Two jujitsu guys sat next to me rambling while I was having a couple of cocktails with Seth. They met with a couple of Tinder dates and Tinder down there is pretty dangerous because obviously these druggings and stuff. And then I don't know who put it in my drink. Could have been the bartender. Could have been the guy's Tinder date. I tried to steal that night. Could have been him.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

4664.062

a more in-depth question than like, how do I escape side control? You know, give me exact circumstances in which I can give you guidance or set you on the right path.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

4682.739

I mean, all competition has an element of performance anxiety, but any combat sport with strikes, I think, adds a severe element of risk, traumatic brain injury, right? So for me, the stakes are just that much higher. So when you're dealing with an athlete in those circumstances, you really do have to be very calculated and thoughtful about how you approach coaching them.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

47.284

Yeah, so we left the after party, flew straight in there. The secret investor threw us a party and it was the hottest five days of my entire life. It was grueling. In Colombia? In Colombia, yeah. Heavy times down in Colombia.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

4708.014

And you really have to be careful about how you build confidence. Like a lot of people, I'm brought in as the grappling coach in a lot of fights where I The goal is that they don't use their grappling. I'm just carrying the bucket, right?

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

4720.465

But what really I have to try to do is give them the confidence that if it were to hit the floor, that what they're doing is good and that they're going to be okay. And once they have that confidence, when they're on the feet in those other positions, they aren't as scared to take risks. Right, because...

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

4747.13

Exactly. Like Volkanovski against Islam. It's like most people would have gone into an Islam Akachev fight and been like, at all costs, do not get taken down. Totally different thought process to be like, we're going to play our game. If it hits the ground, we know how to get back up. We're going to get back up. Obviously, no one's... Dagestan has this...

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

4766.078

thing about them due to khabib and so many undefeated fighters some of those guys i will admit do have some padded records but they are very talented fighters like you might see a guy with 16 and 0 but he's for eight bus drivers and and there's not many bus drivers in tagastan so we really had to shatter that myth no one's superhuman no one's unbeatable everyone loses if you didn't lose you retired too early so i think um

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

4791.977

Yeah, just building confidence in the athletes. But I would say the flip side of that is, truth be told, I really don't like cornering MMA fights because you more feel relief that your guy got out of there healthy and okay. Because I think one thing MMA doesn't show enough is how badly hurt these guys are after the fight.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

4815.617

Quite often, the camera will avoid the guy that's unconscious for three minutes. So from a coach's perspective, from a friend's perspective, when you see your guy unconscious for a concerningly long amount of time, I would say that's a traumatic experience as well. So for me, coaching, you're second-guessing everything.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

4835.919

You don't want to completely change someone's game because you don't have a lot of time to work for them. Work with them. But you also want to build, you need to build that confidence with them and stuff. So it's like, there's a lot on the line in how you approach helping these guys.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

4852.314

And to be honest, it's more me doing slight adjustments or giving them confidence by reinforcing what they already do. When it comes to selling instructionals, I will tell people that I taught them everything they know. But truth be told, these guys are already very, very good in what they do. Like Jack Deller, He's one of the most incredible grapplers I've ever trained with.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

486.213

But from that point on, just basically, and usually I can handle a few drinks. I probably only had three, four drinks. And I remember just distinctly the last memory I have, we had two shots there and Seth was trying not to drink because of the stem cells. And I was like, you're a pussy. So I drank my shot and his shot.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

4874.682

And he's predominantly known as a striker. So it's like I've learned things from him. So these guys are obviously already very talented athletes.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

4894.913

To be more confident? I mean, you just... You need reassurance from people you trust. You know what I mean? Like the guy, the blue belt at your gym that's hitting on the females in the gym, telling them they're doing a great job. You know what I mean? It's not going to be that. You're not going to have that much reassurance.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

4910.921

But obviously, the more you respect someone's ability to teach or their ability to perform when they tell you you're doing something right. That's going to add a hell of a lot of confidence. I think it's always better to be overconfident than underconfident in any sort of combat area. In any sport, I would say. More fights have been lost due to underconfidence than overconfidence.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

4932.335

You think that's the case?

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

4975.026

But it is still, a lot of the time it's like, so obviously there are some, like there are some lucky shots, but like, like say Masvidal, He knew that if he applied pressure, he knew the way Askren would lean. So he knew sort of his habits, right? I mean, that was definitely a mistake on Askren's end. You know what I mean? He was a great approach by Masvidal as well.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

4998.888

You know, like he's sprinting towards him at a period of the fight where usually it's pretty tame. Usually a feeling out process, usually a hand touch. So he's breaking sort of the rhythm there. So... I think there was a bit of planning in what looked like a brilliant, accidental, lucky strike. But it was well placed. Yeah, I think that was calculated. They knew what Askren's reaction would be.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

5058.627

Oh, I mean, you know what? Like it's sort of based on what competition is popular at the time. So what I mean by that is ADCC would allow heel hooks. And there was a guy that called, who's my power Harris, who was notorious for throwing on heel hooks and not letting go when people tap and just breaking their legs.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

506.942

And ordinarily that's something I would do because given his five foot three size, a full margarita might kill the man. So usually I'm jumping on bullets for him as it is. But what ended up happening was we went to our next destination, which is obviously a family friendly place. As you can imagine in Medellin, Seth walks into the bathroom and finds me basically pants down.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

5078.251

So that created an urgency, even in myself when I thought I might be in his weight division to now learn leg locks, because obviously you don't want to be, you don't want to lose. You don't want to be embarrassed by having a sort of a hole in your game there. And in that particular circumstance, I was quite concerned he was going to just get it, rip it, and not let go.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

5096.175

He got banned from the UFC, I'm pretty sure, for doing that. This guy's notorious for just being a caveman and just ripping shit. But jujitsu is sort of like you're looking for holes in the sport to take advantage of it. So once I started training that heel hook game, then a tournament appeared called EBI, which became like sort of a,

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

5116.63

Eddie Bravo's event became sort of this cultural movement where we had the stars from the original Danahood Death Squad, like Eddie Cummings and Gordon and Gary Tonin, who were using moves that a lot of the pre-existing black belts had never played with because they were banned in those competitions. So these guys got...

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

5136.616

basically a head start on an area of the game that was going to become very important later and then once people were so scared of their leg locks it created opportunities for other parts of their game so it's kind of like um you're trying to get ahead of the curve so it's just trying to recognize vulnerabilities and exploit them at the right moments but there's been like uh

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

5159.25

50, 50 guard was a position. Generally speaking, if the older generation of black belts hate it, they hate it for a reason. Cause it's working 50, 50 guard, deep half guard. We had a move called the beer and Bolo. We had all the leg locks. We had sort of arm traps from the back as ADCC became more popular and wrestling became more important.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

5179.866

We had this scrimmage style wrestling, which basically just scrambling for top position. So, and that would be more reminiscent of MMA where the goal on bottom is to get up. Obviously, in jiu-jitsu, we don't have to worry about strikes, so we can be a bit more creative in what we do.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

5195.414

So really, there's a whole lot of eras, and usually there's like a person that made those moves popular because they came in and beat people that they shouldn't have beaten because they were using moves that were sort of cutting edge or innovative moves.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

5215.421

Good question. I've stopped watching this. No, I don't know what we're in now, to be honest. I mean, like, again, like I think we'll probably see some new emerging trends based on our event because there's so much at stake. There's a great amount of prize money. There's a lot of prestige in that you're going to be able to claim your team is the number one team in the world.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

5233.227

So I think a lot of coaches are going to be, especially a guy like Greg Souder is going to be trying to think of some really creative way.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

5250.192

We've got Lachlan Giles, who gave me my black belt. He had a fantastic run at ADCC, and he was able to medal as a 77-kilo guy in the openweight division, and he heel-hooked three monsters. He basically heel-hooks. Within the game of heel-hooks, there were different positions which people could innovate.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

5268.175

There was a guy called Eddie Cummings who was really good at outside heel-hooks in a position called outside archery. Gary Turner, Gordon Ryan were really good at getting this sort of inside Senkaku. I was throwing some Japanese terms around to confuse people. and they innovated that area.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

5283.005

And then Lachlan Giles came in and innovated this position called backside 50-50 and created a massive trend. So he was really influential in the sport, and he's made bank off the back of that, respect to him. And then in the UK, we have a guy called Farris, who I've picked because he's got good banter. He riles up the Brazilians, and I'm excited to see some of that take place.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

529.495

I've pulled my shirt off. I've gone to the bathroom. I'm overheating. He thinks it's a dream come true. He's found me in the bathroom, unconscious with my pants down, but he has to get me out of there. And the funniest thing is he had to carry me out of there with his stem cell ridden damaged neck. So he could, uh, I mean, he could barely lift me as it is, but with the stem cell injury.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

5323.878

Yeah. And actually the pit itself is like guys that figure out how to utilize the pit. Cause like we've had the UFC cage forever, right? People worked out how to wrestle against the cage. People changed strategies of the cage. Typically speaking, when guys got taken down in the earlier UFCs, they'd try to get away from the cage. And then it changed where guys would use the cage to get up.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

5344.218

So I think the pit and how you use the pit, there's a huge opportunity for innovation there. And with innovation comes instructional sales. So they make bank offer.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

5359.858

I'll be honest, not a lot. You know, it's hard being in my position because I love training and I just want to go in and have a role. But when you're a known athlete and or you're a known promoter, People see that as their opportunity. If I can impress. Yeah, they're like, oh, now's my time. And that's actually a shout out to the new general manager, Ben Kovacs of Flow Grappling.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

5382.968

I would say if you guys see him at an open mat, fight him to the bitter end, fight him to the death. If you submit him multiple times, I'm sure you'll get a spot on the Flow Grappling event.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

5395.387

That's what they think. Yeah, they come for me. So, I mean, I don't train too much. I'll show up to a random gym and some dude will be there just trying to kill me. And I'm just like, what have I done to you, brother?

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

5419.854

Oh, do I want to say what I'm doing? I don't want to say. All right. So we're going to London. We're running the CGI trials where we'll do three divisions, three, four man divisions. The winners are those who represent the team, team Europe and the other two guys, Owen Jones and who am I forgetting?

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

5445.054

Owen Jones is in there and the other divisions will be decided by the trials. And then I'm going to do a bit of a European seminar run. So hit up Europe. We'll get some content. I'm going to try and raise a bunch of money for a cause, but I'll keep that cause secret now because it might cost me my life if people don't run around Europe with that much money to give to a certain group of people.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

5471.448

Thank you, bro.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

551.606

So really he carried me home, tucked me into bed. Apparently I was clothed. I woke up fully naked, suspicious, but he wouldn't, he obviously wouldn't have done much damage if he did. But we checked, uh, we basically checked the security camera footage the next day. And really the reason we realized it was cupola mean, cause it has this You're sort of like the walking dead.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

572.838

I couldn't walk because I took two hits, but you remember all your banking detail. You remember your numbers very well. So it messes with your head, but it's great to rob people because you remember the details. So we've got the security camera footage where Seth's dragging me to the front door. We get to the Airbnb and I perk up, put the coat in, and pass back out. You're kidding.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

593.798

Yeah, he takes me to bed.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

605.392

So that shocked me. Seth obviously thought I just drank too much, but when we put it together, it was definitely a hit of scopolamine. We are constantly having this argument, really. Who saved whose life? He obviously rescued me from the bathroom floor, but I jumped on the bullet. of his drugging shot. So it's kind of who saved who here.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

639.79

Seth would not be sitting there awkwardly in the corner looking at us. He'd probably be in a grave, six feet under the ground somewhere.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

653.315

You know what, honestly, I woke up naked and saw a trash can on the, like I saw a trash can there and I was just like, fuck what happened last night? But I felt pretty good to be honest. I was like, cause obviously usually a hangover, as you well know, can be very ugly the next day. But I remember being like, I don't remember anything that happened. And then I started to piece it together.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

672.344

Obviously the camera guy that was with us at the time, he sort of showed me the videotape he took of me. basically entering the house. I called Seth. We're trying to piece it together, really. It was a mystery.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

68.29

Pretty much. I mean, we didn't sleep much. The guy had it set up so we had IVs every morning. That probably kept me alive, quite honestly. And we brought Volkanovski's coach, Joe Lopez, 73 years old, didn't sleep, did not sleep for three days. Used his poor Spanish on any woman that would listen to him, but somehow still alive, returned to his family safely.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

687.466

I mean, yeah. Luckily, Airbnb and the guy at the front desk showed us a security camera footage to piece it together, and he thought it was the funniest thing he's ever seen. No pity at all from the security guard.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

707.641

I mean, that's how many of Seth's dates go, you know? They don't call him Bill Gosby for nothing. Same complexion.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

730.72

No, to be fair, Bill Cosby was taller significantly.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

741.965

I mean, honestly, I think that's all you can do down there is just get obliterated and try to find true love with a Colombian woman, you know, which is very, very difficult. The fantasy ends quite quickly and expensively.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

786.351

I honestly brought the average down for the men over there. I think, you know, I was, I was doing them a world of good.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

797.25

So we, we got this, um, obviously we've got a fair fight foundation. Despite everything I've just said, I do do charity work. I'm for the greater good. You know what I mean? And we partner with a guardian program, which has jujitsu schools all around the world for sort of kids that wouldn't have access to those programs. And they,

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

814.764

provide them clean drinking water, in some of the places food, and English lessons. So we went out there. Actually, where was I? Actually, we were in Peru with the Guardian guys because we're building a school out there in Peru. And one of the guys in Ethiopia that runs the Guardian program there And Kodo, one of the guys at Guardian, got me to send a video message to him. And I just winged it.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

838.754

And I was like, because he's a fan of me, I don't know why. But I sent him a message and I was like, I'll see you soon in Ethiopia. And then I just pursued that to the end to visit his school. And we went out there with Guardian. And these kids were basically training on concrete. It's in Addis Ababa. And we went out there and went on a bit of an adventure. But they were training on concrete.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

859.875

Yeah, just like concrete with like maybe three or four puzzle mats. So like real harsh conditions for the kids out there in Ethiopia. So we generously fitted out their gym with mats and show roll, hooked them up with some geese for them to train in. But yeah, tough conditions for them training.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

881.93

Not a heavy guard pulling culture, as you can imagine. Yeah. But yeah, I mean, Ethiopia was absolutely wild. Just the sheer scale of the poverty out there was mind-blowing. And we went to visit a couple of the tribes out there. We went to... Honestly, I can't remember the name of the tribes, but we went deep out there to see two different tribes.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

904.427

One of them we rolled into and they were doing a whipping ceremony, which is like a coming of age ceremony for a man in the tribe before he disappears for a while on some hunting expedition. But the way they celebrate that is he does his part. The male part of this is they line up seven or eight bulls and he just runs naked across them. Back and forth. So that's his contribution. Across what?

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

92.35

Every time I take him away, Volkanovski calls me and is like, please, bro. Bring him back alive. He's going to die. And I'm like, that's what his family wants. They keep asking me.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

929.063

Across bulls, like the animal.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

935.108

Yeah, they just helped him out. Well, actually, they had a smaller bull to kick. A little stepping stone of a bull. A stepping bull. He made it. He fell at the very end, but I couldn't post any of that footage because he was naked, unfortunately. Okay. Naked. Well-endowed.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

955.763

Yep, yep. And then they whipped him? No, they didn't whip him. They whipped a bunch of women in the tribe. So we roll in, we're on this full tribe adventure.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

965.93

It's basically a grading ceremony at B-Team. You know, it doesn't come easy. There's a lot of balls, a lot of whipping.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

976.697

So get this right, and again, from my own perspective, not a problem for men like me and you, but The women are whipped to show that they can handle physical pain to show that they're ready for sex. Okay.

Modern Wisdom

#950 - Craig Jones - Drugged In Colombia, Escaping Jail & Defeating UFC Wrestling

992.522

So the girls, this is a crazy thing to watch. They go and they have to find branches and And they run, like they're doing a song and dance and stuff. It's a celebratory day for the dude and for the women they're suffering. They go find some long branches and they present it to a man and he like tests it to make sure it's thick enough and then just slams them with it and they have to poker face it.

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