BJJ stars Mikey Musumeci and Gordon Ryan have both reacted after watching the early matches from CJI 2.
The first day of CJI 2 kicked off the Brazilian jiu-jitsu (BJJ) promotion’s $1,000,000 team tournament, which saw tournament favorites New Wave, B-Team, and Atos, along with a dark horse in Team Australasia advance to the next round.
While we saw top level BJJ action and a lot of fun highlights, the entertainment level throughout the seven-hour opening day dipped at times. A lot of it is from to the broadcast’s poor event pacing, but some of it was also due to many of the bouts ending in draws.
Only one team actually advanced via elimination, while the three others were draws that needed judges to score a decision. That could be attributed to the nature of having evenly matched, high level grapplers that are hard to submit, or others possibly taking a more conservative approach to ensure they make it unscathed to Day 2 of the lucrative tournament.
Mikey Musumeci thinks it’s the specific team format itself that’s the problem.
Mikey Musumeci urges Craig Jones to change ‘boring’ team format from CJI 2
“The biggest thing this event showed was the CJI / UFC BJJ format is the most exciting. The Quintet rules are a lot more boring unfortunately,” Mikey Musumeci wrote on Instagram.
Teen prodigy Sarah Galvao’s incredible upset over a reigning ADCC champion stole the show on Day 1, and Musumeci thinks that’s proof that the entire team format of CJI 2 should be changed.
“IMO the girl matches have been the best of the whole event because they are the OG rules!” Musumeci said. “Let’s vote to make the semis for the men tomorrow like wrestling duals / kasai (where) people in their actual weight compete with each other with CJI rules!”
There are things to nitpick and improve from Day 1 of CJI 2, but it’s actually the chaos from the varying size differences that added more entertainment — and led to most of the submissions in the card.
It’s understandable that people will give their takes on big events like CJI 2, but criticizing the entire format seems incredibly premature at this point. We’re not even halfway through this one CJI tournament, and the Quintet format has already produced a lot of entertaining BJJ action through the years.
Craig Jones also joked about Musumeci’s idea of suddenly changing the rules in the middle of a tournament.
“Yeah let me change the format at midnight,” Jones responded in jest.
Gordon Ryan slams CJI 2 ‘bias’ after controversial call on New Wave teammate
Mikey Musumeci wasn’t the only decorated BJJ star to complain publicly about CJI 2. Gordon Ryan, who was never going to say anything good about the event either way, slammed the “failed event” after a controversial call surrounding his teammate.
New Wave’s Giancarlo Bodoni was caught in a deep heel hook and eliminated after a controversial call, where CJI 2 referees called a tap that he denies happened. Despite the controversy surrounding the “Brazilian tap,” New Wave still went on to advance to the next round.
That didn’t stop Ryan from going off on Craig Jones’ event though.
“I advised my entire team against this bias, bulls— event, as the team competing picked the refs, judges and commentators,” Gordon Ryan wrote on Instagram.
“Never in history has a tap, in any ruleset, EVER consisted of a single tap on the body. It is ALWAYS 2, 3, or more taps,” Ryan claimed. “But of course, crooked creg (sic) called it a sub, stacking anything he can against the boys in his BS promotion. If you’re asking why I will never be involved in this empty and failed event, this is one of the reasons.”
Watch the controversial phantom tap in question:
Ryan isn’t correct that in any ruleset, it has to be two or more taps. In many events, one tap, verbal taps, or even audible grunts or screams could be enough for referees to decide to stop a contest.
There were also two controversial stoppages on this card, and like Bodoni, Geo Martinez got eliminated despite denying that he was tapping. On both occasions, it seemed completely understandable why referees could view or mistake the reaction to the deep submissions as a tap, and neither instance seemed anything like corruption.
Speaking of bias, Ryan isn’t exactly an impartial viewer here. With all his personal issues with Craig Jones, Gordon Ryan was always going to spout off on CJI 2, and he just found his reason to do it here. Chances are high that he will do it again after watching Day 2 today.
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Category: General Sports
