At 19 years old, Helena Crevar is already the No. 1 pound-for-pound women’s grappler in the world and as much as she’s earned that recognition during her career, she’s still chasing bigger and better goals.
Already undefeated in 2026 with submission victories in every single match, her next challenge comes in ONE Championship on Friday when she goes up in weight to face Paige Clymer in a featured bout at The Inner Circle from Lumpinee Stadium in Bangkok. While that’s the only thing on her mind right now, Crevar admits she still has mountains left to conquer for the remainder of the year as well.
“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,” Crevar told MMA Fighting about her goals for 2026.
“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.”
As the first woman to earn a black belt from famed instructor John Danaher and training under arguably the grappling GOAT in Gordon Ryan, Crevar is arguably already one of the biggest stars in the grappling world.
But Crevar knows there’s always ways to get more and more attention for her matches, which is why she’s open to crossing over and inviting any major name from MMA to challenge her on the mats.
“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 and then have a match with them,” Crevar said. “No one in particular but I think some of those would be really nice to [compete] in.”
Of course, UFC women’s strawweight champion Mackenzie Dern was a multi-time grappling champion before she turned her full attention to MMA so that’s one name that immediately pops up on the radar. Another is UFC Hall of Famer Ronda Rousey, who was an Olympic bronze medalist in judo before she became the biggest superstar in women’s MMA history.
Reigning UFC women’s bantamweight champion Kayla Harrison went even further in her Olympic career as she captured two gold medals before making her move to MMA.
To be clear, Crevar isn’t singling out anybody by name but she’s not opposed to any of those matches if the opportunity was offered to her.
“Any of those would be super fun,” Crevar 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.”
Obviously, Crevar would likely be favored in any of those matches but she knows that’s really just a sign of respect for the body of work she’s already put together in her career.
Whether it’s a superstar from MMA or another top grappling champion, Crevar expects that she’s always going to have a massive target on her back but she’s embraced that role as the best in the world.
“For me it’s motivation,” Crevar said. “Because I did earn the No. 1 pound-for-pound spot last August. Being at the top at such a young age, it’s really motivating and it makes me want to hold onto that No. 1 spot and keep putting my name out there and keep growing.
“Because I am so young and I have so many years ahead of me. It motivates me to take on all those challenges and make the most out of them.”
