LFA 194 took place on October 18th, 2024 and it saw BJJ legend Beatriz ‘Bia’ Mesquita move to 2-0 in her professional MMA career with her second submission finish. Although it’s still very early days for Mesquita in MMA, she’s already shown that her grappling translates incredibly well and her striking will only improve as time goes on. She won in her debut at Spaten Fight Night just four months ago and she’s been very busy since then, returning back to professional grappling in order to compete at ADCC 2024. Many competitors would have chosen to take some time off after a major tournament like that, but Mesquita immediately announced her second MMA fight.
Mesquita’s MMA debut was a first-round finish and her ADCC appearance was successful too. She won bronze at under 65kg and came back later on the second day to compete in the first women’s absolute division in a long time, where she won a silver medal. Mesquita was riding that wave of momentum into her second MMA fight while her opponent, Shannel Butler, was making her professional debut after a 1-1 career as an amateur fighter. On paper it looked as though Mesquita was going to run through the fight and once the cage door closed, things went exactly as expected.
Mesquita got hit a few times during the early striking exchanges but she was able to pressure Butler against the cage and started working for the takedown. Butler was able to circle out after a while and disengage, but Mesquita used her striking to and forward movement to create the opportunity to drive Butler into the cage again. She picked up a single-leg this time and took Butler down to her knees, steadily working to bring Butler to the ground fully. Butler turned away to stand up and Mesquita leapt on to her back, locking up a body-triangle against her standing opponent.
Mesquita used a few strikes to soften Butler up while she leant against the cage, before locking up the rear-naked choke over her jaw. Mesquita squeezed hard and as Butler lifted her head to relieve the pressure on her jaw, the choke sunk underneath around her neck. It was only a second or so then before Butler tapped, with Beatriz ‘Bia’ Mesquita getting the submission win at LFA 194 in just 3 minutes and 33 seconds of the very first round. It’ll be interesting to see just how far Mesquita can go in her MMA career now but she has plenty of time left to make an impact at 33 years old.
The full LFA 194 event replay, including the fight between Beatriz ‘Bia’ Mesquita and Shannel Butler, is available to watch on UFC Fight Pass. A clip of the finish can be found below:
