Elisabeth Clay

Elisabeth Clay was born on June 10, 2000, in Katy, Texas, and spent part of her childhood in Oklahoma before her family settled in Alaska. A gymnast from toddlerhood, she brought that flexibility and body awareness into grappling after being introduced to the sport at a local mixed martial arts gym as a young teenager. It became clear almost immediately that she had an unusual gift for the ground game, and within a couple of years she was no longer just competing against her peers — she was beating adult brown and black belts as a teenage blue belt, a pattern that would define the first phase of her career and earn her a reputation as a fearless giant-killer long before she owned a black belt herself.

That reputation crystallized in 2017, when a 16-year-old Clay entered the ADCC West Coast Trials as a blue belt and won the entire bracket, defeating established black belts en route to gold and punching a ticket to the ADCC World Championship (an injury ultimately kept her from competing there). The performance made her one of the most talked-about prospects in women's grappling. In 2018 she moved to California to join the Ares Jiu-Jitsu team, training directly under coaches Samir Chantre and Osvaldo Moizinho, and the following year she added an IBJJF World No-Gi title as a brown belt, submitting her way through the bracket.

Clay received her black belt from Chantre and Moizinho in November 2020, and she wasted little time adjusting to the new level. Less than a year later, at the 2021 IBJJF World No-Gi Championship, she won her first black belt world title, finishing the final with a guillotine choke. That same year she also claimed gold at the Pan No-Gi Championship, submitting six straight opponents along the way. She has since built one of the more consistent resumes in women's no-gi competition, adding further IBJJF World No-Gi and Pan No-Gi titles in 2022 and 2024, a gi Pan Championship gold at middleweight in 2023, and the Polaris Under-66kg Grand Prix title in 2023. In 2022 she stepped in as a late replacement for an injured Carina Santi at the ADCC World Championship, where she again faced perennial rival Amy Campo and lost a close decision.

Stylistically, Clay is known for an exceptionally high pace, strong takedowns carried over from her early gymnastics and combat-sports background, and a submission arsenal centered on leg locks and back attacks. She rarely plays a defensive, points-only game, preferring to hunt finishes even against much more experienced opponents — the same trait that made her famous as a teenager still defines how she competes as one of the sport's established black belt stars.

Clay's significance to the sport goes beyond her medal count. She is one of the clearest examples in modern BJJ of a competitor who skipped the traditional slow climb through the colored belts and instead forced her way into consideration against top-level black belts while still a blue and brown belt, helping normalize the idea that skill, not rank, determines who deserves a seat at the highest tables of the sport. As a full-time competitor still active on the major no-gi circuits — IBJJF, Polaris, and ADCC trials among them — she continues to be one of the most reliable finishers in her weight class.

High-output no-gi competitor built around relentless pace, leg entanglements, and back-take finishes