Craig Jones Invitational results, Premier Battles' AP5X upcoming event.
In my last blog post I mentioned CJI, which turned out as the best jiu-jitsu event I’ve ever seen. Nicky Rod won for the >80KG category and Kade Ruotolo won for the <80KG one, each winning $1,000,000 which is by far the highest amount any person has won from a jiu-jitsu event.
It was genuinely impressive to see Craig Jones pull off such a successful event from top to bottom and it seems like the combat sports community is extremely satisfied with what they got. I hope Craig does this more often and really gives us what the sport deserves.
A few things I think were fantastic choices are the custom sloped edge which I believe it was inspired from Karate Combat but I could be wrong. Other than people accidentally putting their hands at the top of that and getting their position reset because of that (which happened once that I remember) it allowed the athletes to actually spend some time wrestling without the worry of just being forced to reset due to being pushed or pulled out of the ring.
Someone that’s a lot smarter than me (or knowledgeable when it comes to combat sports) could probably explain many other reasons why it’s better for the spectators too. I also loved that everything was streamed for free and to YouTube. The quality was great, nothing ever cut out a single time for me, the commentary was high quality, there were entertaining things planned throughout and that’s not even talking directly about the incredible matches of jiu-jitsu on display, of which their were many.
Kade Ruotolo vs Andrew Tackett might be my favourite match ever. Absolutely unbelievable levels of every part of jiu-jitsu from these lads and they never take their foot off the gas. Constant action, opening themselves up to so much that it results in this insane back and forth. I won’t spoil what happened, but I highly recommend you watch it because it is really that good:
The match video can’t be embedded, so click here instead!
On the topic of arguable niches that get me excited, there’s also a UK battle rap event coming up at the end of the month on the 31st of August which has some of the best matchups I’ve ever seen on a UK card, not least of which is Bizzo Bond vs Gemin1. If you only checked Gemin1’s socials throughout the buildup to this you might think he’s bored, but this is the first (kind of) title-unification type match in UKBR history. Gemin1 recently beat Quill to get the Don’t Flop title and Bizzo has been defending his title over at Premier Battles for a long ass time at this point.
A lot of people seem to think that Bizzo lost at least one of the battles he’s had since being a champ, that one being vs Unanymous. At the time I had Bizzo winning myself, but I’m not gonna lie… on the rewatch I kind of see it a little differently. To me right now it’s a 2-1 to Unan, but it’s not a bodybag or anything and I can see myself changing my mind again if I rewatch it a few months down the line. Still, that’s the closest he’s gotten to a loss in years now and that includes battles he did on KOTD (vs their champ at the time Real Deal) and iBattle (vs their champ/headband wearer Oppa). Some of the iBattle lads might tell you Oppa won that, but I was in the room and he absolutely did not. He was great though.
Bizzo Bond vs Gemin1, Vizual vs Shox, Ark vs Rivers, Frankie Phraser vs Sean Kray, Crow vs Tek and Grazza vs Scomo are all going to be insane matches and I am really really looking forward to seeing them all, hopefully in person if I can find a train ticket that isn’t extortionate for me to get there last minute! I might make a post or two about these particular battles other than the main event because they’re quite interesting to think about and I know you guys love it when I yap passionately… right?
Click on the flyer above to go get your own tickets. If you have never been to a battle rap event before and are worried due to some of the pointless drama you might have seen online, I promise you that this community is a really welcoming and lovely one for the most part and every time someone new turns up to an event they always say how welcomed they felt. Give it a go, we’ll look after you!
As you were!
konr
