And as someone who has trained NUMEROUS times with both Craig and Tom and with Craig and Tom together (and as someone who has also been involved in a real life civilian entangled gun vs knife fight) I can tell you from my perspective that Tom absolutely does not minimize Craig's coursework. He simply tells you that more times than not that the resource predator using instrumental violence will usually produce a weapon as they approach before you are in touching distance. You will have most likely made several "early game" (MUC) mistakes if you end up in touching distance with unknown people who have produced a weapon...... unless you are at a gun show....
As to process predators employing expressive violence (especially with knives) they may not produce the weapon until within a couple of arms length but there were likely clearly articulable cues that people simply failed to pick up on....or may have picked up on but failed to act upon until it was an entangled fight. The old "odds vs stakes" thing comes to mind....the odds may not be terribly high that you will end up in an entangled fight ....but the stakes do not get any higher. It is low frequency/EXTREMELY high danger. THAT is why ECQC skills are so critical (my opinion).
Kind of like the old saying "if your gonna be stupid you'd better be tough"..... if you're going to not act on the cues of impending criminal assault until confirmation that an attack is under way then you better have some ECQC skills. But for most orderly people in their daily routine if they pick up on the cues and don't try to rationalize away what they are seeing and they act on the info being presented they are far less likely to end up in a clinch.
There is no adversarial motive to what Tom is saying so people should not read any into what he is saying.