Jozef Chen Explains Why Top Names Are Skipping ADCC This Year: "$200 Bucks"

Jiu-Jitsu Federation: With ADCC approaching, Jozef Chen joined host Declan Moody on The White Monster Podcast to unpack the growing list of notable absences from this year's event...
Tying it directly to shifts in how the sport now pays its top competitors.
Chen, who competes at 194 pounds (88kg), pointed to how widespread the pattern has become:
It's kind of weird because a lot of really good people aren't doing it, not even just thinking about my division, but like 77..
Moody added his own examples:
Without Diogo [Reis], without Giancarlo [Bodoni].
Despite the thinner field, Chen is still heading to Poland to compete, though he's been candid about the financial reality of entering:
I literally paid like 200 bucks for the registration to go compete at ADCC and it's like there's no guaranteed payment.
The conversation kept circling back to paid superfight organizations as the driving factor.
Under the current ADCC structure, a competitor can lose early, walk away with nothing, and receive no compensation for travel – while those same athletes can earn guaranteed payment competing elsewhere:
Many of these superfight events, I kind of see Jiu-Jitsu going in this direction as a whole.
I think that's why a lot of better people are moving to these kinds of superfight organizations.
Moody framed it as a shift in how top competitors now weigh their own value, something that really wasn't a factor before paid grappling existed as a real option:
It's hard to get out of bed if you're not being paid. You need a reason.
Obviously I love the sport and I want to compete, but it's at a point now where I think competitors should recognize their value too.
Moody pointed to them as a sign of the sport's overall growth:
There's money in the sport now, like huge amounts of money in terms of viewership and participation.
There's a ton of money coming into the sport from memberships and things like that and gear.
It should scale up.

The article Jozef Chen Explains Why Top Names Are Skipping ADCC This Year: "$200 Bucks" first appeared in Bjj Eastern Europe.

Source: BJJEE — read the original