Teenage grappling world No. 1 Helena Crevar opens door to MMA crossover super fights

Helena Crevar heads into Friday’s ONE Championship bout at Lumpinee Stadium in Bangkok already carrying the No. 1 pound-for-pound women’s grappling ranking in the world — and at just 19 years old, she insists she is only getting started. The American faces Paige Clymer in a featured contest at The Inner Circle, moving up in weight for the challenge.

Crevar enters the match undefeated in 2026, having finished every opponent by submission. Despite that dominant run, she is already mapping out a packed schedule for the rest of the year. “The ONE Championship match and then hopefully maybe get on ONE Championship at least one more time this year, as well as ADCC, win the world title over there,” she told MMA Fighting. “Then any other competitions I could get either Worlds or Pan-Am or any super fights that I can to win titles or defend my titles to stay as active as possible.”

Crevar’s credentials are difficult to overstate. She is the first woman to receive a black belt from renowned instructor John Danaher and trains under Gordon Ryan, widely regarded as the greatest submission grappler of all time. That pedigree has made her one of the sport’s most recognisable figures well before her twentieth birthday.

Now she is eyeing a new frontier: crossover matches against elite MMA competitors. “Any of the MMA fighters that are very popular would be great matches because if they’re very popular in MMA, that combination would be really interesting to come into a jiu-jitsu match,” Crevar said. “No one in particular but I think some of those would be really nice.”

The names that naturally surface are significant ones. UFC women’s strawweight champion Mackenzie Dern was a multiple-time grappling world champion before committing fully to MMA. UFC Hall of Famer Ronda Rousey won Olympic bronze in judo before becoming the defining figure in women’s mixed martial arts. Reigning UFC bantamweight champion Kayla Harrison claimed two Olympic gold medals in judo before her own transition to the cage.

Crevar is not calling any of them out directly, but she is leaving the door wide open. “Any of those would be super fun,” she said. “Any of the current or any of the best female MMA fighters would be cool. For future super fights, I think that would be really nice.”

For now, the immediate focus is Bangkok and Clymer. With ADCC world title ambitions and further ONE Championship dates on the horizon, Crevar’s 2026 is shaping up as the year she moves from rising star to undisputed face of women’s grappling.