CJI Day One: Why the Team Format Failed to Spark Competitive Excitement

The Promise of Team Format

This format promised the best teams of No-Gi competitors battling it out for a 1 million dollar prize. The format promoted exciting matches between some of the best in the world, in the generally exciting Quintet format. However, for the most part what we got was a lackluster showing from competitors who didn't take risks and were thusly not rewarded.

Shortcomings

The majority of the matches to me looked like most of the competitors were looking to no lose as opposed actually trying to win the match. The over-reliance on the leg-lock game from most competitors resulted in slow and unexciting battles of sweaty guys playing footsie. There were some stand out performance but overall the first day was disappointing.

One of the biggest disappointment was the fact that there were not one but two questionable situations that were ruled as tap outs by the judges. The most egregious was in the Taylor Pearman versus Giancarlo Bodoni match. While Pearman had the healhook locked in fairly well, he did not have strong control on the knee line of Bodoni and Bodoni did not look like he felt in danger in the position. To me it looked like he was trying to position his hands in a way to to open up the legs when Pearman began claiming he tapped. The judges agreed and ultimately called the match. Watching this felt like an extremely anti-climactic ending to a match.

The situation between Belal Etiabari and Geo Martinez was a little more clear. I cna understand why the judges ruled that as a tap as Geo does tap his hand on Etiabari's leg three times. I don't think that Martinez was actually tapping to the ankle lock, but was actually looking for a place to attack Etiabari's leg entanglement, however how it ended up did visually appear that Martinez tapped out. While it is a grey area, I think that Geo not being careful with his hand placement was the real culpurit in this situation.

The real disappointment of the night was the Atos and Team Europe duel. Five completely un-eventful double elimination matches which both grapplers were attempting to play the leglock game to uninspiring results. If I was a casual fan of jiu-jitsu, I would have turned off the coverage after this bracket.

A side note, the Renato Laranja segements of the program were not funny and embarrassing. He has been playing the same character for over a decade and the jokes really haven't changed. Also, making a joke about someone's trauma over child molestation is tasteless and gross.

Audience Reaction

The audience was vocally upset with the performance and rulings several time throughout the broadcast. And the reaction in the online circles that I participate in was mostly disappointment. I hope that day two can recover from the issues of day one, because if not, I would be skeptical about the future for CJI.

Positive Highlights

There were a couple of Standout Performances throughout the night. Personally, I thought that Lachlan Giles's Austriala-Asia team was the most exciting of the men's bracket. They played a different style than many of the other teams. While they still engaged in the leglock game, they also demonstrated some excelent active passing and dominant top position which allowed them to win their bracket in a hard fought competition.

The highlight for me was the Sarah Galvao, her status as the underdog allowed her to be a little more free with her grappling. She played an exciting and agressive style to advance her position throughout the match. Her match was probably the most exciting of the night, and the high point of an otherwise disappointing seven hours of Jiu-jitsu

Suggestions for Future Competitions

I would go back to the original CJI 1 format of two weight class brackets fighting to advance. The matches were more exciting and the competitors took more risks to advane their brackets. If they do stay with the team format in the future, they need to revise the stalling rules to encourage competitors to be more aggresive. I would also go to annoucing scores after every match to let teams know where they stand in the rankings and what they need to bring to the match.

Conclusion

Hopefully day two will be better, especially for the team format. I want CJI to succeed as they have potential to have a great and super interesting product. I really hope that Craig and team take the lessons from today and make necessary changes to produce a top quality product