Cassia Moura is the first two-division champion in UFC BJJ history. The 20-year-old Brazilian, who won the promotion’s women’s bantamweight title by beating former ADCC champion Ffion Davies, dropped down to flyweight for the final of the promotion’s tournament and took the inaugural belt from Adele Fornarino by split decision. It is a historic result for the promotion’s youngest star, and the match itself delivered: both women had dominated their opening-round opponents at UFC BJJ 10, and the final was competitive and physical from the first exchange.
It was also immediately disputed. Fornarino, the Australian double ADCC gold medallist, spent much of the first round attacking Moura’s legs, locking up multiple deep heel hooks and continuing to apply pressure until the horn. Several outlets argued that the opening frame should have been scored 10-8 in her favour, and BJJ Doc reports that Fornarino also absorbed an eye poke that interrupted her momentum. Craig Jones went further, posting an image of what he said was judge Letticia Ribeiro’s scorecard, showing the first round originally marked 10-8 for Fornarino before being altered. The promotion has not addressed the claim publicly. Moura survived every one of those attacks, and surviving them is part of the achievement; the debate is not whether she competed well, but whether the judges correctly weighed how close Fornarino came to finishing her.
The stakes give the result its weight. Fornarino was the year’s clearest example of the sport’s shifting economics, the reigning double ADCC champion who passed on defending her titles in Kraków to chase this tournament and this belt. She has now walked away from one and been denied the other by a single card. Whatever happens next, a rematch has rarely been easier to justify, and Moura’s double reign begins with the loudest asterisk the promotion has produced.
The co-main event ended a long wait for one of the sport’s most watchable competitors. Renato Canuto, who challenged Andrew Tackett for the welterweight title at UFC BJJ 2, dropped to lightweight for his second title shot and won the vacant belt by unanimous decision over Ethan Crelinsten, the Polaris lightweight champion and B-Team co-founder now training under the Simple Man banner. The match was a scramble from the opening seconds: Canuto drew gasps with a foot sweep into an early takedown, survived Crelinsten’s immediate leg attack, gave up his back after a sweep, escaped, and threatened with an anaconda and a tight triangle that Crelinsten fought free of. Both men found late heel hooks. Canuto grew more dominant as the match wore on and earned the decision on all three cards. For Crelinsten, who called out the UFC BJJ belt after defending his Polaris title in March, the wait for that gold goes on.
The night’s most memorable finish came from a debutant. Gabriel Almeida, competing in UFC BJJ for the first time, submitted Gilbert Burns with a heel hook at 4:34 of the first round of their middleweight match. Burns scored an early takedown after Almeida’s guillotine attempt failed, but Almeida brought the match to the floor late in the round, attacked the neck, then switched to a figure-four on Burns’s left leg and forced the tap. It was a sharp reversal for the jiu-jitsu world champion, who needed only 82 seconds to submit Horlando Monteiro at UFC BJJ 9 in June, and his second competitive loss in three weeks, after his technical-fall defeat to Khamzat Chimaev at RAF 13 in Florida. It was also a stark reminder that the leg-lock game of modern no-gi grappling punishes anyone, however decorated, who lets a specialist get his grips first.
The undercard kept the finishes coming. Thaynara Victoria armbarred Danielle Kelly in the first round at women’s strawweight, Raphael Ferreira heel-hooked Kyle O’Hare in the first at featherweight, and the lower-body submissions piled up from there. It was a strong card for the promotion’s second paywalled event on UFC Fight Pass, and it handed the October rankings update this site published last week its first real test: one new champion, one disputed one, and the most decorated woman in no-gi grappling still without a UFC BJJ belt.
