BJJ legend Bia Mesquita feels DQ win ‘delayed’ UFC call, but winning LFA title should earn ticket

Bia Mesquita wrote her name in jiu-jitsu history with 10 IBJJF worlds championships, plus a gold medal in ADCC and dozens of other relevant titles in grappling, and now hopes to punch her ticket to the UFC this Friday in Salamanca, N.Y.

Mesquita will face Sierra Dinwoodie for the vacant LFA bantamweight title in the main event of LFA 211 on June 20, almost exactly a year after she made her pro MMA debut. The American Top Team product told MMA Fighting ahead of her most recent fight in March that it would either earn her a shot at the LFA belt or a straight call to the UFC, but winning via DQ must have decided her future in the short term.

The jiu-jitsu ace, who was 3-0 in the sport with a trio of rear-naked chokes, fought Hope Chase just days before UFC 313 in Las Vegas, and said company matchmakers were in attendance. She wasn’t able to showcase her grappling skills, though, as Chase landed an illegal upkick that deemed her unable to continue. In the end, Mesquita sees the glass half-full.

“I need this belt, this title, to kind of end this cycle,” Mesquita told MMA Fighting. “It’s like my internship in MMA, right? My first step, so I feel more confident when I get in the UFC. That will make me even more prepared. It’s my first time training for five rounds, and that makes all the difference. I’ve gained so much experience in this last camp. It’s my first 10-week camp, too.

“Even though [the fight] didn’t end the way anyone wants — of course I wanted to sign with the UFC, I’m ready for this moment —, it happened the way it should. This camp has made me more prepared. Winning this belt will make me more deserving of signing with the UFC. The whole thing will kind of make it all go the way it was supposed to. But I do think that the way the last fight went, and all of them being there, kind of delayed it, but what are three months? It’s all good. I’m ready.”

Mesquita improved to 4-0 that night but felt weird leaving the cage with a disqualification victory, “like something was missing” after not scoring a submission for the first time in MMA. Instead, she walked away worried that her eye would never be the same.

“The moment her heel hit, I felt my eyeball go in,” Mesquita said. “Like the heel landed perfectly on the eye socket, you know? When I go down with my hand on the eye and try to open it and can’t, it’s like I don’t have any control of it anymore. I started to feel desperate, right?

“I wanted to be like, ‘No, I’ll continue [fighting]’, but the doctor said there was no way. It’s crazy, I couldn’t see out of that eye. It was a hard hit. Thank God it was nothing too serious. It took almost three weeks to get rid of all the bruises inside and around the eye, but I went the ophthalmologist and he said everything was alright. It didn’t hit the cornea, which worried me the most, or cause any detachment of the retina.”

Dinwoodie, her opponent Friday, is a purple belt in jiu-jitsu with two finishes in MMA. They both have a record of 4-0, but Mesquita feels she’s one step ahead after building an all-time great career in grappling and training with the likes of Kayla Harrison and Yana Santos in Florida.

“I feel very prepared for whatever comes, but we’ll go to the ground eventually. We’re literally in a cage and there’s nowhere to run,” Mesquita said with a laugh. “Anything can happen in there. I don’t know what to expect, so I made sure to work every situation so I don’t feel frustrated. I’ve trained enough to know I don’t need to take her down in the first round. No, I’m cool. My goal is always to take her down and submit, obviously, but that doesn’t mean I have to do that in the first 30 seconds of the fight.”