Helena Crevar

Helena Crevar was born in January 2007 in Las Vegas, Nevada, and began drawing attention in the grappling world while still a teenager, competing against black belts as early as age 14. At 15 she relocated to Austin, Texas, to train full-time under John Danaher at what was then known as New Wave Jiu-Jitsu, joining a program built around Danaher's systematic, detail-driven approach to no-gi grappling.

Crevar's rise through the sport was unusually fast even by the standards of Danaher's academy. She was promoted to purple and then brown belt by Danaher, and her performances against adult competition quickly outpaced her belt rank, culminating in a silver medal at the 2024 ADCC World Championship in the women's -65kg division at just 17 years old, making her the youngest competitor ever to reach an ADCC podium.

Her momentum continued into 2025, when she won the women's tournament at the second Craig Jones Invitational (CJI2) and claimed the Who's Number One (WNO) title at age 18, finishing Elisabeth Clay by submission. That same year, after winning an IBJJF World Championship at brown belt, Danaher promoted her to black belt on June 2, 2025, at Roka HQ in Austin, making her the first woman promoted to black belt directly by Danaher and marking the third time he had personally promoted her.

By September 2025, Crevar had climbed to the #1 pound-for-pound ranking among women's no-gi grapplers according to FloGrappling, with top rankings across both the 145lb and 155lb divisions. Her team also underwent a significant change around this period: in April 2025, New Wave Jiu-Jitsu rebranded as Kingsway Jiu-Jitsu, a move BJJ media outlets linked to the team charting its own identity independent of the broader Danaher Death Squad lineage, even as Danaher himself remained head coach.

Still only in her late teens, Crevar has already established herself as one of the most dominant young talents in women's grappling, combining the technical precision associated with Danaher's coaching system with a competitive résumé, an ADCC medal, a WNO title, and a black belt, that most competitors take a decade longer to assemble.

A precocious, technically mature no-gi specialist known for fast-paced scrambles, sharp armbar and leg-lock entries, and a composure well beyond her age against