Ffion Davies

Ffion Davies was the first British athlete to win the IBJJF Worlds at black belt. In 2022 the Welsh athlete won lightweight with a 2-0 win over Janaína Lebre in the final and, the next year, won the title again, once more against Janaína, 6-0.

Born in Swansea, Wales, on January 18, 1995, she did judo from age 8 and made the Welsh national team. She also played rugby. She started Jiu-Jitsu in November 2013, at an MMA gym, under Chris Rees, who gave her a blue belt.

She then trained under Darragh O’Conaill of East Coast Jiu-Jitsu, first at a branch in Cardiff and, from 2018, in Dublin, Ireland. He gave her a black belt on November 27, 2018. In 2022 she moved to New York to train with JT Torres at Essential Jiu-Jitsu, part of the Atos network, the team she represented at Worlds.

In her 2022 run she submitted her first two opponents and beat Margot Ciccarelli 7-0 in the semifinal. In 2023 she submitted Larissa Martins and Luciane Silva from the back before the final. In no-gi she won both her weight class and the open class at No-Gi Worlds in 2023, and the IBJJF lists her as a four-time No-Gi world champion.

After her second title she did not return to the gi Worlds. She moved to superfights, beat Mackenzie Dern at the 2024 Craig Jones Invitational and signed with UFC Fight Pass. In March 2026 she lost the inaugural UFC BJJ women’s bantamweight title fight to Cassia Moura by split decision. In June she got back in the win column with an armbar on Amanda Bruse.

Ffion is also head coach at ARMA BJJ, in Clapham, London. In 2025 she won the World Master in the Master 1 lightweight division.