Beatriz "Bia" Mesquita "Bia"

Beatriz de Oliveira Mesquita — known throughout the sport simply as 'Bia' — was born on April 7, 1991, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. She began training jiu-jitsu at around five years old alongside her brother, starting under instructor Luis Fernando at Vento Sul Academy before eventually coming under the wing of Leticia Ribeiro, one of the most decorated women in the sport's history and a member of the Gracie Humaita team. As a teenager, Mesquita also competed in freestyle wrestling, a background that helped shape the takedown and top-control game that would later become a hallmark of her competitive style. She received her brown belt in June 2009, and less than two years later, in March 2011, Ribeiro promoted her to black belt on the podium of the Pan American Championship.

What followed is, by any measure, one of the most dominant title runs in the history of competitive jiu-jitsu. Mesquita won the IBJJF World Championship at black belt in the lightweight division in 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2018, 2019, and 2021, adding openweight (absolute) gold in 2013 and 2014 along the way. By the time she claimed her tenth black-belt World title in 2021, she held the record for the most IBJJF World Championship gold medals won by any woman in the sport's history — a mark recognized by Guinness World Records — and she was inducted into the IBJJF Hall of Fame in recognition of the achievement. Alongside her IBJJF résumé she also collected multiple Pan American and European Championship titles across her career.

Mesquita's game is built on technical precision and volume rather than flash: she is known for suffocating top pressure, tight guard passing, and an ability to consistently out-work opponents over the course of a match, a style that translated well when she stepped outside the gi. In 2017 she won gold at the ADCC World Championship in the -60kg division, becoming an ADCC World Champion in addition to her extensive gi résumé, and she returned to the ADCC podium with bronze medals in both 2022 and 2024, remaining competitive at the highest level of no-gi grappling well over a decade into her career.

In 2023, Mesquita signed with American Top Team to pursue mixed martial arts, a significant crossover for a competitor already regarded as one of the greatest gi grapplers of all time. She made her professional MMA debut in 2024 and built an undefeated record, finishing the majority of her opponents by submission or knockout, before winning the LFA Women's Bantamweight Championship in June 2025. That title run earned her a contract with the UFC, where she made her promotional debut in October 2025 — continuing a career transition that few grapplers with her level of gi and no-gi accolades have successfully made.

Across gi, no-gi, and now MMA competition, Mesquita's career stands out for its longevity as much as its dominance: nearly fifteen years after her first black-belt World title, she remains an active, elite-level competitor, and her ten IBJJF World Championships continue to stand as the benchmark against which every other female grappler in the sport is measured.

Technical, high-volume competitor built on suffocating top pressure and tight guard passing, with the most IBJJF Black Belt World titles in women's history