You are spot on about the women's divisions and what they consider "heavy." It doesn't take much to get put in the + category as a woman, especially if you're above average height and athletic. Thank you for speaking up!
10k after taxes is sort of a joke, in US thats like maybe 2-3 months of groceries, or maybe a month of rent, food, bills, a new phone. For 2 years event it should be 2 years salary at least.
This was a BSE (Black Swan Event) for ADCC. They were coasting - but those days might now be over. Kudos to ADCC for what they have done to date - but new games are ‘afoot’ - an example of Darwinian forces in action. The CJI (Craig Jones Invitational) is offering 1 million in prize money for each division - and 10K+ - for just signing up. Yikes. The only way for ADCC to go - in my view - is to connect with the Olympic Committee (even of only for prelim-discussions). Their only option is the play the prestige card - exemplified by the Olympic Gold Medal. Perhaps they could do it - if I were them, I’d have the talks in motion already. They would keep the prestige element in play - even if only for the short term … giving them time o re-invent. I agree, that stacking a few million dollars away, is difficult for most athletes, even the leading cadre of athletes. A year of seminars and some DVD sales isn’t going to cut it. In my own case, I had an early start and yet it took several thousand seminars to get to that point and then ‘leverage it with some solid investing and diversification (training design for military, law enforcement, etc. It’s tough! So a chance at getting some of that done in a hard weekend … is very, very enticing. It would cut two decades off, even some smart planning. It’s a no-brainer for a professional athlete, at the top of his or her game, to choose an opportunity at ‘life-changing’ money - over a $10K purse. $10K would hardly cover the cost of their food and the training camp. I don’t know how much ADCC’s new event arena costs - but that money alone, distributed to prize-money for the athletic s, would have been a better move (IMO). Interesting times ahead.
I am ALWAYS on the side of Fighters on any issue. It's criminal how poorly paid most fighters overall are paid. That goes doubly for Women's divisions. I really respect your decision to go to CJI and make it very clear that pay is a huge component of that. With that said... Your cuddle fox pillow thing is adorable and looks real comfy and I want one now.
You gonna feel dumb as hell when you realize Craig is just playing around like always and when it comes time to pay he’s gonna realize he’s in way over his head.
This is awesome! Can’t wait to see you compete on Craig’s invitational. Happy for you that this opportunity came up when you didn’t feel great about adcc! Thanks for being such a great role model ❤️👊
Pulling out of worlds won't change anything other than giving someone else the status to charge more for seminars and start successful schools/ sell instructionals. Someone else will build their legacy. Someone will always want to be world champion over haggling about fighter pay. Super fights and ADCC have more room for more payment options, ADCC only being once every two years and run by people with infinite money should do better.
