Hillary Williams

Hillary Williams became a world champion with four years of Jiu-Jitsu. In June 2010, in Long Beach, she won middleweight in the division that combined brown and black belts by beating Brazil’s Caroline de Lazzer in the final, on a referee decision. She had been a brown belt for seven months and received her black belt days later, on June 12, from Roli Delgado and Matt Hamilton.

Born on October 14, 1988, in Arkansas, she started training in 2006 at Westside MMA, in Little Rock, looking for something to do in the offseason of the other sports she played. In 2009 she took bronze at the ADCC, in the under 60 kg division. She learned Portuguese, spent training stints in Brazil and, according to GRACIEMAG, was one of the first women on the IBJJF referee roster.

At the end of 2010, after a semester of injuries, she warned that her studies would squeeze the calendar. “In August, I’ll start the second phase of medical school here in the USA and it will be really hard to compete,” she told GRACIEMAG. She still took bronze at the 2011 Worlds and completed her medical degree in 2015.