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Lex Fridman Podcast

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

Wed, 14 Aug 2024

Description

Craig Jones is a legendary jiu jitsu personality, competitor, co-founder of B-Team, and organizer of the CJI tournament that offers over $2 million in prize money. Thank you for listening ❤ Check out our sponsors: https://lexfridman.com/sponsors/ep439-sc See below for timestamps, transcript, and to give feedback, submit questions, contact Lex, etc. Transcript: https://lexfridman.com/craig-jones-2-transcript CONTACT LEX: Feedback - give feedback to Lex: https://lexfridman.com/survey AMA - submit questions, videos or call-in: https://lexfridman.com/ama Hiring - join our team: https://lexfridman.com/hiring Other - other ways to get in touch: https://lexfridman.com/contact EPISODE LINKS: CJI tickets: https://lexfridman.com/cji CJI on B-Team's YouTube: https://youtube.com/bteamjiujitsu Craig Jones's Instagram: https://instagram.com/craigjonesbjj Craig Jones's Instructionals: https://bjjfanatics.com/collections/craig-jones B-Team's Instagram: https://instagram.com/bteamjj/ B-Team's Website: https://bteamjj.com/ SPONSORS: To support this podcast, check out our sponsors & get discounts: Eight Sleep: Temp-controlled smart mattress. Go to https://eightsleep.com/lex LMNT: Zero-sugar electrolyte drink mix. Go to https://drinkLMNT.com/lex BetterHelp: Online therapy and counseling. Go to https://betterhelp.com/lex NetSuite: Business management software. Go to http://netsuite.com/lex Shopify: Sell stuff online. Go to https://shopify.com/lex ExpressVPN: Fast & secure VPN. Go to https://expressvpn.com/lexpod OUTLINE: (00:00) - Introduction (12:20) - $1 million in cash (14:24) - Kazakhstan (16:49) - Ukraine (48:58) - Bali (56:18) - CJI (1:07:20) - Gabi Garcia (1:10:14) - The Alley (1:25:24) - Gordon Ryan and Nicholas Meregali (1:32:18) - Trolling (1:35:06) - ADCC (1:45:19) - Training camp (1:57:01) - Breaking legs (1:57:44) - Advice for beginners (2:04:23) - Volk (2:13:26) - Future of jiu jitsu (2:16:32) - Steroids (2:20:01) - Hope PODCAST LINKS: - Podcast Website: https://lexfridman.com/podcast - Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/2lwqZIr - Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2nEwCF8 - RSS: https://lexfridman.com/feed/podcast/ - Podcast Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrAXtmErZgOdP_8GztsuKi9nrraNbKKp4 - Clips Channel: https://www.youtube.com/lexclips

Audio
Transcription

0.069 - 15.317 Lex Fridman

The following is a conversation with Craig Jones, martial artist, world traveler, and one of the funniest people in the sport of submission grappling. While he does make fun of himself a lot, he is legitimately one of the greatest submission grapplers in the world.

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16.198 - 43.013 Lex Fridman

And underneath the veil of nonstop sexualized Aussie humor and incessant online trolling, he is truly a kind-hearted human being who's trying to do good in the world. Sometimes, he does so through a bit of controversy and chaos, like with the new CGI tournament that has over $2 million in prize money, and it's coming up this Friday and Saturday.

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44.454 - 69.434 Lex Fridman

Yes, the same weekend as the prestigious ADCC tournament. The goal of CGI tournament is to grow the sport, so you'll be able to watch it for free online, live on YouTube, and other places. All ticket profits go to charity, mainly to cancer research. So I encourage you to support the mission of this tournament by buying tickets and going to see the event in person.

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70.174 - 93.247 Lex Fridman

Craig gave me a special link that gives you a 50% discount on the tickets. Go to lexfriedman.com slash CJI and it should forward you to the right place. They're trying to sell the last few tickets now. It's a good cause. Go buy some. And also, let me say, as a fan of the sport, I highly encourage you to watch both CJI and ADCC and to celebrate athletes competing in both.

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93.787 - 112.162 Lex Fridman

From CJI with Nicky Ryan, Nicky Rod, Rotolo Brothers, Fionn Davis, Mackenzie Dern, and more, to ADCC with Gordon Ryan, Nicholas Margali, Giancarlo Budoni, Rafael Lovato Jr., Mika Galvao, and more. I have a lot of respect for everyone involved.

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112.603 - 130.799 Lex Fridman

I train with many of them regularly and consider many of them friends, including Craig, Gordon, and of course, John Donaher, who I will talk to many, many more times on this podcast. And now, a quick few second mention of each sponsor. Check them out in the description. It's the best way to support this podcast.

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131.4 - 154.2 Lex Fridman

We got Asleep for naps, Element for hydration, BetterHelp for mental health, NetSuite for business stuff, Shopify for selling stuff online, and ExpressVPN for privacy on the interwebs. Choose wisely, my friends. Also, there's a bunch of ways to get in touch with me. If you want to give feedback, go to lexfriedman.com slash survey.

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154.24 - 175.753 Lex Fridman

If you want to submit questions or videos or call-ins for me to answer on the podcast, go to lexfriedman.com slash AMA. And there's a bunch of other ways at lexfriedman.com slash contact. And now onto the full ad reads. As always, no ads in the middle. I try to make this interesting, but if you skip them, please still check out our sponsors. I enjoy their stuff. Maybe you will too.

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177.591 - 207.489 Lex Fridman

This episode is brought to you by Eight Sleep and it's pod four ultra. It is a pretty interesting mystery of what's going on in the brain while we sleep, because it's not like the thing shuts off. It's actually a pretty active and dynamic process. It's also humbling. that we need sleep. It is a little death. It is a thing like food that our body requires, and that to me is humbling.

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208.63 - 236.267 Lex Fridman

It's another reminder that we're mortal, another reminder that we're merely human, that we're merely a biological organism. In fact, it's a reminder that not just our organism, our body, but the entirety of human civilization is fragile. I've been studying a lot about both ancient civilizations and the modern civilizations that were driven by ideologies, especially the communist ideologies.

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237.888 - 259.084 Lex Fridman

I'll probably do a few videos on those, certainly a few podcasts, just thinking deeply about the ideas that drive humanity. Anyway, all of these things I dream and think about when I'm laying on the extremely comfortable Eight Sleep bed that controls the temperature and boy, is it needed on these hot Texas summer nights.

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260.105 - 287.53 Lex Fridman

Go to eightsleep.com slash Lex and use code Lex to get 350 bucks off the Pod 4 Ultra. This episode is also brought to you by Element, my daily zero sugar and delicious electrolyte mix. It is one of the most delicious things I consume in a day on days like this. So yesterday I had a really hard training session in jujitsu. I did, I don't know, 10, 11 rounds maybe.

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287.55 - 315.789 Lex Fridman

And it's just all the water from my body is gone because I usually don't drink water when I'm training. Not for any particular reason, but just because I don't want to take a break. I really want to go to a place where I'm exhausted. And so, once I'm done with training, The level of deliciousness that a cold water with a watermelon salt powder from Element is difficult to describe.

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315.809 - 338.486 Lex Fridman

It's really, really refreshing. And I found that if I don't consume electrolytes after training like that, I start getting a headache, I just start feeling off. And so replenishing the electrolyze after is really important. And of course, I also make sure I drink element beforehand as well. But yeah, all that is important to support the body when you're doing those difficult training sessions.

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338.907 - 367.41 Lex Fridman

And it is one of the things that allows me to escape whatever the turmoil that's going on in my mind. And the community, the art of it, I love it all. Get a sample pack for free with any purchase. Try it at drinkelement.com. This episode is also brought to you by BetterHelp, spelled H-E-L-P, help. They figure out what you need and match you with a licensed therapist in under 48 hours.

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367.85 - 394.622 Lex Fridman

I think in this episode, Craig brings up doing couples therapy with Gordon. You know, I'm a big fan of those guys, training with them and just the way they approach this really complicated art and their ability to achieve sort of world-class outcomes and consistently innovate, I'll innovate everybody else. It's so fascinating to watch. So part of me hates that there's shit talking going on online.

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394.642 - 419.863 Lex Fridman

I understand it's part of the sport, but I do hope that there is, at least amongst the fans, more celebration of the athletes involved. And I'm now still working through the footage of the Olympics for judo and wrestling. It's just, I love all the sort of one-on-one combat sports and all of the Olympics in general and all sports, man. I love football and basketball.

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419.883 - 440.63 Lex Fridman

Steve Curry's performance at this Olympics is just like legendary. You can't look away. That guy was just on fire. I love it when an athlete steps up and it's their day. And it's just perfection. Anyway, check out BetterHelp at betterhelp.com slash Lex and save on your first month. That's betterhelp.com slash Lex.

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442.472 - 468.011 Lex Fridman

This episode is also brought to you by NetSuite, an all-in-one cloud business management system. It is the machine within the machine of a business that provides a common language where the different modules of the business can communicate. all the messy stuff. It really was fascinating to watch the rate of progress that XAI is doing and Tesla is doing on building up their compute center.

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468.712 - 487.001 Lex Fridman

It's fascinating to see the process of a business solving the puzzles and doing so rapidly and figuring out how to construct a collection of humans that is able to develop processes, simplify them, optimize them, and all of that together efficiently.

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488.004 - 508.599 Lex Fridman

without any kind of bottlenecks, or if there's bottlenecks, you remove the bottlenecks and doing so at a rapid rate and iterate, iterate, iterate, all of that. That's the difference between successful businesses and not, or not just successful, but revolutionary businesses. It truly is beautiful to watch. The art of cutting through the bullshit of bureaucracy really is beautiful.

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509.52 - 536.56 Lex Fridman

And yeah, you should have the right tools for the job, and NetSuite is good. And NetSuite is trusted by 37,000 companies that have upgraded to it. Take advantage of NetSuite's flexible financing plan at netsuite.com. That's netsuite.com. This episode is brought to you by Shopify, a platform designed for anyone to sell anywhere with a great online store.

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537.301 - 555.227 Lex Fridman

Shopify is an exemplary sort of manifestation of capitalism, the good side of capitalism. I've been working on a video on communism, the history of communism. because a lot of people have been throwing around the word communism and fascism and all of that.

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555.247 - 579.177 Lex Fridman

And I've been taking seriously the understanding of the history of these movements and ideologies and taking seriously the words and the meaning behind the words and the historical meaning behind the words, the economic system, the political system, implications of those systems, all of that, just understanding the history, understanding the ideas,

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580.317 - 605.482 Lex Fridman

and explaining them and internalizing them seriously and walking through the fire calmly. But anyway, Shopify is a platform where a very large number of people can sell stuff and a very large number of people can buy stuff. And they're free to do so. And the system is very low friction for everybody involved.

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605.822 - 637.971 Lex Fridman

So there is a small manifestation of the vibrant market of individuals, humans interacting and flourishing together. So sign up for a $1 per month trial period. at shopify.com slash lex. That's all lowercase. Go to shopify.com slash lex to take your business to the next level today. This episode is brought to you by ExpressVPN. I use them to protect my privacy on the internet.

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638.732 - 667.143 Lex Fridman

Now, of course, on the topic of communism that I've been researching, and not just communism, but totalitarian regimes, often these utilize mass surveillance. and not just totalitarian regimes, but all societies, there's a temptation by those in centralized control to maintain power, to maintain leverage on the people.

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668.004 - 699.384 Lex Fridman

There's a temptation to utilize mass surveillance, and of course, the job of the people is to fight back, fight for their privacy, fight for their freedom of speech, freedom of thought, all of that. All of that that fights off the descent into the dystopian worlds of the 1984 ilk. Anyway, a good VPN is step one of protecting yourself. And I've always been using ExpressVPN. I love it.

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699.865 - 725.78 Lex Fridman

It's fast, works on any device and operating system, including Linux, my favorite operating system. Go to expressvpn.com slash lexpod for an extra three months free. This is the Lex Friedman Podcast. To support it, please check out our sponsors in the description. And now, dear friends, I invite you all to come to the pool with Craig Jones and me. So

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741.141 - 747.524 Lex Fridman

When you brought the $1 million in cash on Rogan's podcast, did you have security with you?

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748.024 - 753.007 Craig Jones

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

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753.247 - 753.447 Unknown

Yeah.

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753.487 - 771.14 Craig Jones

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.

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771.16 - 777.866 Craig Jones

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.

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778.206 - 778.367 Lex Fridman

Yeah.

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778.687 - 793.102 Craig Jones

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.

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793.283 - 793.483 Lex Fridman

Yeah.

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793.863 - 794.744 Craig Jones

But I don't know if I believe him.

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796.106 - 803.883 Lex Fridman

That's what everyone says. That's what Pablo Escobar probably says also. What's your relationship with risk? Especially with the risk of death.

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804.283 - 829.368 Craig Jones

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?

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829.388 - 840.092 Craig Jones

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.

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840.152 - 846.955 Lex Fridman

Like you're not attracted to risk. You're attracted to adventure. And the risk is the thing you don't give a damn about if it comes along with it.

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847.195 - 850.056 Craig Jones

Sometimes the best adventures involve the most risk, unfortunately.

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850.638 - 857.602 Lex Fridman

Speaking of which, you went to Ukraine, like you said, twice recently. Twice. Really pushed the limit there. Including to the front.

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858.082 - 858.642 Craig Jones

To the front.

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859.022 - 863.125 Lex Fridman

Tell me the full story of that from the beginning.

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863.445 - 883.334 Craig Jones

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.

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883.474 - 903.107 Craig Jones

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.

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903.127 - 926.401 Craig Jones

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

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927.481 - 951.221 Craig Jones

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

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952.25 - 967.141 Craig Jones

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.

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967.521 - 985.317 Craig Jones

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?

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985.922 - 1004.032 Craig Jones

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.

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1004.072 - 1018.489 Craig Jones

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.

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1019.429 - 1038.793 Craig Jones

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.

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1038.813 - 1042.715 Craig Jones

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

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1042.735 - 1067.412 Craig Jones

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

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1068.444 - 1086.779 Craig Jones

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.

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1087.739 - 1105.235 Craig Jones

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.

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1105.275 - 1125.077 Craig Jones

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.

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1125.097 - 1143.696 Craig Jones

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.

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1144.176 - 1161.129 Craig Jones

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.

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1161.549 - 1178.18 Craig Jones

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...

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1178.92 - 1196.515 Craig Jones

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.

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1197.612 - 1200.415 Craig Jones

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

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1200.595 - 1209.383 Lex Fridman

The Patriot defense system is incredible. It's an incredible piece of technology. That's from the United States. It's expensive, but it's incredible.

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1209.803 - 1230.647 Craig Jones

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.

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1230.707 - 1253.641 Craig Jones

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.

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1253.681 - 1264.21 Craig Jones

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.

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1264.711 - 1280.838 Lex Fridman

Well, it's human nature as well. It's not just Kyiv. It's Kharkiv. It's even Donbass, Kherson. People get accustomed to war quickly because it's impossible to suffer for long periods of time. So you adjust and you appreciate the things you still have.

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1281.378 - 1297.608 Craig Jones

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.

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1298.129 - 1318.1 Craig Jones

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.

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1318.12 - 1342.382 Craig Jones

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.

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1343.163 - 1365.563 Craig Jones

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.

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1365.583 - 1379.387 Craig Jones

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.

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1379.407 - 1400.459 Craig Jones

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.

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1400.779 - 1418.633 Lex Fridman

And it is now a minefield like a lot of parts of Ukraine. That's one of the dark, terrifying aspects of wars. How many mines are left? Even when the war ends for decades after there's mines everywhere because demining is extremely difficult.

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1419.79 - 1440.812 Craig Jones

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.

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1441.288 - 1450.83 Lex Fridman

Why do you think you were able to get to Chernobyl? Why don't you think the Ukrainian people, the Ukrainian soldiers don't see you as a threat?

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1451.97 - 1455.731 Craig Jones

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

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1456.051 - 1457.391 Lex Fridman

So your connection was actually Putin.

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1457.411 - 1471.959 Craig Jones

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.

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1472.239 - 1484.224 Unknown

In one of your videos, I actually heard the Ukrainian language they were talking about. We don't want to lose an athlete. That's what they're saying as you're loading the rocket launcher.

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💬 0

1485.025 - 1491.528 Craig Jones

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 –

0
💬 0

1492.412 - 1521.267 Craig Jones

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

0
💬 0

1522.758 - 1555.467 Craig Jones

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?

0
💬 0

1555.867 - 1563.408 Craig Jones

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.

0
💬 0

1563.669 - 1563.849 Unknown

Yeah.

0
💬 0

1564.149 - 1586.187 Craig Jones

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.

0
💬 0

1586.227 - 1606.638 Craig Jones

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.

0
💬 0

1607.458 - 1616.161 Craig Jones

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

0
💬 0

1617.216 - 1640.409 Craig Jones

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

0
💬 0

1641.109 - 1656.465 Craig Jones

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.

0
💬 0

1656.946 - 1680.866 Craig Jones

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.

0
💬 0

1681.166 - 1704.769 Craig Jones

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.

0
💬 0

1705.66 - 1725.586 Craig Jones

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.

0
💬 0

1725.646 - 1727.727 Craig Jones

And then we heard two more strikes.

0
💬 0

1728.507 - 1753.527 Craig Jones

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

0
💬 0

1754.247 - 1764.636 Craig Jones

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.

0
💬 0

1766.217 - 1773.323 Lex Fridman

Artillery is terrifying because they're just shelling. And the destructive power of artillery is insane.

0
💬 0

1773.953 - 1797.52 Craig Jones

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...

0
💬 0

1798.522 - 1821.299 Craig Jones

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.

0
💬 0

1821.839 - 1825.703 Craig Jones

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

0
💬 0

1826.103 - 1831.587 Lex Fridman

Well, they have to, right? They have to be in good spirit. You have to be joking and laughing.

0
💬 0

1832.068 - 1841.555 Craig Jones

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.

0
💬 0

1841.655 - 1847.941 Lex Fridman

They're probably still telling stories of that crazy Australian-American that rolled in.

0
💬 0

1848.621 - 1866.094 Craig Jones

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.

0
💬 0

1866.468 - 1873.994 Lex Fridman

Yeah, it's a very creative marketing campaign. Very dangerous one. I don't think Coke or Pepsi are going to do that one. So it's very innovative.

0
💬 0

1874.014 - 1891.927 Craig Jones

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.

0
💬 0

1891.947 - 1914.382 Craig Jones

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.

0
💬 0

1914.402 - 1934.321 Craig Jones

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.

0
💬 0

1934.361 - 1955.9 Craig Jones

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.

0
💬 0

1956.24 - 1975.823 Craig Jones

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.

0
💬 0

1975.923 - 1996.41 Craig Jones

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.

0
💬 0

1996.59 - 2015.935 Craig Jones

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.

0
💬 0

2016.395 - 2035.399 Craig Jones

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.

0
💬 0

2036.239 - 2057.514 Craig Jones

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,

0
💬 0

2058.41 - 2074.666 Craig Jones

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.

0
💬 0

2074.686 - 2089.03 Craig Jones

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.

0
💬 0

2090.331 - 2093.192 Lex Fridman

So I went to a lot of the same places as well, including Hursan.

0
💬 0

2095.992 - 2116.737 Craig Jones

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.

0
💬 0

2117.137 - 2127.361 Craig Jones

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.

0
💬 0

2128.766 - 2129.967 Lex Fridman

How did that experience change you?

0
💬 0

2130.947 - 2153.103 Craig Jones

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.

0
💬 0

2153.883 - 2180.363 Craig Jones

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.

0
💬 0

2180.523 - 2194.22 Craig Jones

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.,

0
💬 0

2195.407 - 2220.632 Craig Jones

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

0
💬 0

2221.963 - 2247.417 Craig Jones

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,

0
💬 0

2249.74 - 2259.582 Lex Fridman

the soldiers are using their own funds to buy equipment, whether it's bullets, whether it's guns, whether it's armor. Is that still what you saw?

0
💬 0

2260.022 - 2281.374 Craig Jones

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.

0
💬 0

2282.014 - 2294.303 Craig Jones

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.

0
💬 0

2294.903 - 2314.737 Craig Jones

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.

0
💬 0

2314.777 - 2330.901 Craig Jones

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.

0
💬 0

2330.921 - 2346.334 Craig Jones

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.

0
💬 0

2347.155 - 2353.52 Craig Jones

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.

0
💬 0

2355.222 - 2379.889 Lex Fridman

Yeah, there's Telegram groups on both sides, and it's basically, some of it is propaganda, some of it is psychological warfare, some of it is just the human nature of being like, of increasing your own morale and the morale of the people around you by showing off successfully killing other human beings, which are made other in war. And the nature of this war has evolved.

0
💬 0

2380.169 - 2389.311 Lex Fridman

So drones have become more and more prevalent. They're consumer-level cheap drones. Can you speak to that? Have you seen the use of FBV drones?

0
💬 0

2389.651 - 2409.62 Craig Jones

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.

0
💬 0

2409.88 - 2434.514 Craig Jones

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.

0
💬 0

2434.554 - 2455.846 Craig Jones

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.

0
💬 0

2456.466 - 2477.227 Craig Jones

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.

0
💬 0

2477.247 - 2483.458 Craig Jones

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

0
💬 0

2484.167 - 2491.192 Lex Fridman

So it's a terrifying tool of war and tool of psychological war and used by both sides increasingly.

0
💬 0

2491.532 - 2507.886 Craig Jones

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.

0
💬 0

2508.447 - 2518.301 Craig Jones

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.

0
💬 0

2520.495 - 2542.533 Lex Fridman

Currently, they're all, as far as I know, all human controlled, so FPV. But to me, increasingly terrifying notion is of them becoming autonomous. It's the best way to defend against a drone that's FPV controlled is for AI to be controlling that drone. Just have swarms of drones that are $500 controlled by AI systems. And that's a...

0
💬 0

2544.13 - 2553.948 Lex Fridman

Terrifying possibility that the future of warfare is essentially swarms of drones on both sides, and then maybe swarms of drones say, between U.S. and China over Taiwan.

0
💬 0

2554.428 - 2563.151 Craig Jones

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.

0
💬 0

2563.311 - 2580.559 Lex Fridman

Those are pre-programmed. So the low-level control, flight control of those is done autonomously, but there's an interface for doing the choreography that's hard-coded in. Yeah. Adding increasing levels of intelligence to a drone where you can detect another drone, follow it, and defend yourself.

0
💬 0

2581.8 - 2603.449 Lex Fridman

In terms of the military on both sides of the Ukraine war, that's a technology that's like the most wanted technology is drone defense. Like how are you defending those drones on both sides? And anybody that comes up with an autonomous drone technology. is going to help whichever side uses that technology to gain a military advantage. And so there's a huge incentive to build that technology.

0
💬 0

2603.809 - 2623.997 Lex Fridman

But then, of course, once both sides start using that technology, then there's swarms of autonomous drones who don't give a shit about humans just killing everything in sight on both sides. And that's terrifying. There's civilian deaths that are possible that are terrifying, especially when you look 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 years from now.

0
💬 0

2626.798 - 2649.002 Craig Jones

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.

0
💬 0

2649.042 - 2651.964 Craig Jones

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

0
💬 0

2652.444 - 2670.614 Lex Fridman

And they can wait for a very, very long time. And as far as I know, even politicians, like you're in danger everywhere in Ukraine. So if you want to do a public speaking thing and doing it outside, you're in danger. Because it's very difficult to detect those drones. It could be anywhere. So it's a terrifying...

0
💬 0

2671.573 - 2697.641 Craig Jones

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

0
💬 0

2698.453 - 2725.078 Craig Jones

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

0
💬 0

2725.858 - 2736.644 Craig Jones

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.

0
💬 0

2736.664 - 2743.788 Lex Fridman

Did they, when you talked to the soldiers there, did they have a hope or a vision how the war will end?

0
💬 0

2745.069 - 2751.953 Craig Jones

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

0
💬 0

2752.588 - 2767.718 Lex Fridman

When I was there, there's a kind of optimism that they would be victorious, like definitively. And so is there still that optimism? And also, are they ready for a prolonged war?

0
💬 0

2768.898 - 2789.701 Craig Jones

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.

0
💬 0

2789.721 - 2815.852 Craig Jones

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.

0
💬 0

2815.872 - 2839.017 Craig Jones

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.

0
💬 0

2839.258 - 2859.835 Craig Jones

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.

0
💬 0

2859.895 - 2870.482 Craig Jones

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.

0
💬 0

2871.854 - 2881.645 Lex Fridman

Did they comment on U.S. politics, whether they hoped for Trump or for, in that situation, Biden, now Harris, to win the presidential election?

0
💬 0

2882.526 - 2902.773 Craig Jones

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.

0
💬 0

2903.033 - 2922.206 Craig Jones

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.

0
💬 0

2923.852 - 2925.493 Craig Jones

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

0
💬 0

2925.873 - 2931.495 Lex Fridman

Did you lie to people and say you were close to the president so they can be nice to you? Like so they can convince you to continue the funding?

0
💬 0

2932.035 - 2955.853 Craig Jones

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.

0
💬 0

2957.135 - 2960.48 Craig Jones

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

0
💬 0

2961.877 - 2975.26 Lex Fridman

Yeah, martial arts, there's like a code and there's a respect, a mutual respect. Even if you don't know anything about the other person, if you both have done martial arts. I mean, there's similar things with judo, with jiu-jitsu, with grappling, all that.

0
💬 0

2975.28 - 2981.922 Craig Jones

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.

0
💬 0

2983.362 - 3007.03 Craig Jones

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.

0
💬 0
0
💬 0

3021.864 - 3047.998 Craig Jones

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.

0
💬 0

3048.478 - 3063.017 Craig Jones

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.

0
💬 0

3063.357 - 3082.732 Lex Fridman

That's gangster. That's great. One of the things I love about Nogi Jiu-Jitsu is you don't see rank. So on a small scale, there's no hierarchy that emerges when you have the different color belts. Everybody's kind of the same. It's nice. You get to see the skill. The skill speaks, but there's just a mutual respect and whatever. You can quickly find out who...

0
💬 0

3084.073 - 3090.857 Lex Fridman

I actually wonder if I would be able to figure out the rank of a person. Can you usually figure out how long a person's been doing jiu-jitsu?

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3091.217 - 3104.285 Craig Jones

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.

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3104.916 - 3113.526 Lex Fridman

Oh, it's like in the jungle whenever there's like an insect that's red that is like really flamboyant looking, that means they're dangerous.

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3113.867 - 3122.836 Craig Jones

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.

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3123.997 - 3143.444 Lex Fridman

Okay. So, yeah, you mentioned the project. Can you talk about that? I saw there's a preview that you showed. Craig Jones gone walkabout. Gone walkabout, yeah. And so you showed a preview in Indonesia where you're both kind of celebrating and maybe poking a bit of fun at Hicks and Gracie.

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3143.704 - 3152.599 Craig Jones

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.

0
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3152.981 - 3153.885 Lex Fridman

Yeah, you should keep it.

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3154.631 - 3172.303 Craig Jones

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.

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3172.563 - 3190.194 Craig Jones

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.

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3190.415 - 3204.344 Craig Jones

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,

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3205.472 - 3223.866 Craig Jones

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.

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3223.947 - 3247.337 Craig Jones

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.

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3247.357 - 3269.661 Craig Jones

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.

0
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3270.262 - 3286.888 Craig Jones

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.

0
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3287.858 - 3290.72 Lex Fridman

It's good to know that you see yourself as the John Travolta of jiu-jitsu.

0
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3290.9 - 3294.783 Craig Jones

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

0
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3295.643 - 3312.278 Lex Fridman

Yeah, there's a lot of similarities between the two of you. So you mentioned Anthony Bourdain. What do you like about the guy? What do you find inspiring and instructive about the way he was able to, as you said, scratch beneath the surface of a place?

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3312.878 - 3332.204 Craig Jones

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.

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3332.925 - 3344.013 Craig Jones

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?

0
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3344.033 - 3354.322 Craig Jones

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.

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3354.912 - 3368.416 Lex Fridman

Yeah, that's actually a skill that you're incredibly good at. You make fun of a lot of people, but there's something. Maybe there's an underlying respect. Maybe it's the accent. I don't know what it is. There's a love underneath your trolling.

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3369.096 - 3376.959 Craig Jones

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

0
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3378.659 - 3407.994 Lex Fridman

Speaking of which, let's talk about CJI. You're putting on the CGI tournament. It's in about a week. Same weekend as ADCC. $3 million budget, two divisions, two super fights. Winner of each division gets $1 million. Everyone gets $10,000. How do you even say that? Plus one. 10,000 plus one, yeah. Plus one. Just to compete. So it's August 16th and 17th. Everybody should get tickets.

0
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3408.614 - 3415.837 Lex Fridman

Same weekend as ADCC, which is August 17th. Okay, so what's the mission of what you're doing there?

0
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3416.597 - 3437.221 Craig Jones

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.

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3438.217 - 3462.333 Craig Jones

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.

0
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3463.094 - 3486.999 Craig Jones

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.

0
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3488.34 - 3514.818 Craig Jones

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.

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3515.639 - 3532.637 Craig Jones

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.

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3533.698 - 3556.963 Craig Jones

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.

0
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3557.324 - 3580.059 Craig Jones

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,

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3581.09 - 3597 Craig Jones

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.

0
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3598.001 - 3620.405 Craig Jones

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.

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3620.425 - 3643.464 Craig Jones

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.

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3643.905 - 3662.761 Craig Jones

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.

0
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3663.168 - 3669.074 Lex Fridman

Well, it's good to know that the anonymous funder appreciates you for who you are, Craig Jones.

0
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3669.254 - 3692.573 Craig Jones

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?

0
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3692.773 - 3715.044 Craig Jones

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.

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3715.624 - 3729.17 Craig Jones

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.

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3729.711 - 3756.151 Craig Jones

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.

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3756.691 - 3775.352 Craig Jones

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.

0
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3775.372 - 3801.988 Craig Jones

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

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3802.386 - 3817.499 Craig Jones

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.

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3818.314 - 3840.661 Craig Jones

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.

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3841.282 - 3856.427 Craig Jones

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.

0
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3857.571 - 3866.638 Craig Jones

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.

0
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3866.658 - 3873.803 Lex Fridman

So you're saying, allegedly, there were some under-the-table payments by ADCC. Do you have secret documents proving this?

0
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3874.704 - 3890.231 Craig Jones

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.

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3890.251 - 3903.485 Craig Jones

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,

0
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3904.346 - 3927.485 Craig Jones

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

0
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3928.376 - 3950.84 Craig Jones

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.

0
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3950.9 - 3964.316 Craig Jones

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...

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3965.157 - 3986.54 Craig Jones

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,

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3987.535 - 4007.129 Craig Jones

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.

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4007.149 - 4017.878 Craig Jones

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.

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4018.178 - 4038.53 Craig Jones

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.

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4038.55 - 4050.74 Craig Jones

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.

0
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4052.682 - 4061.092 Lex Fridman

Can you speak to that? How are you preparing for this moment of violence on a Saturday night with Gabby Garcia?

0
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4061.432 - 4084.161 Craig Jones

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.

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4085.121 - 4106.104 Craig Jones

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.

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4107.256 - 4112.078 Craig Jones

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

0
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4113.659 - 4119.922 Lex Fridman

Has it added some complexity to the picture that there's some sexual tension in the room whenever the two of you are together?

0
💬 0

4120.222 - 4120.442 Craig Jones

Yeah.

0
💬 0

4120.802 - 4126.005 Lex Fridman

Maybe I'm being romantic, but it seems like you've slowly started to fall in love with each other.

0
💬 0

4126.425 - 4129.468 Craig Jones

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

0
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4129.488 - 4139.72 Lex Fridman

It's inspiring for many young men that follow you and look up to you. Just the romantic journey that you've been on is truly inspiring.

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4139.86 - 4166.964 Craig Jones

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.