Helena Crevar is about to face one of the toughest challenges of her young grappling career, as she has been booked to compete against ADCC veteran Julia Maele at Who’s Number One 21 on November 30th, 2023. Both women are actually relatively new to the promotion, as Crevar has only had one match on the WNO stage before and Maele has never competed at a WNO event. Crevar made her promotional debut against Healy Dayan at Who’s Number One 19 just a few months ago and she made short work of her fellow colored belt competitor.
Although she’s still a teenager herself, Crevar has been competing against adult competitors for quite some time and has beaten the majority of them that she’s come up against. She even submitted Emily Fernandez at UFC Fight Pass Invitational 4 just a few weeks before she made her successful WNO debut. The most recent time that she stepped on the mats wasn’t quite as successful as those superfights though, as she competed at the ADCC North American East Coast Trials 2023 and took a silver medal in the under 65kg division.
Helena Crevar has proven that she deserves the opportunity to test herself against the best around, and that’s exactly what Julia Maele is. She actually won the under 60kg division at the ADCC European, Middle-Eastern, and African Trials 2022 and although she wasn’t able to reach the podium at the ADCC world championship, Maele has repeatedly cemented herself as one of the top European competitors. She currently holds the Grapplefest under 65kg title after an impressive performance and was most recently seen taking home a silver medal from the middleweight division of the IBJJF No Gi Pan Championship earlier this year.
It’s certainly an interesting matchup between two fantastic competitors, and it’s a great addition to what is already looking like a stacked card. The main event sees Gordon Ryan defending his title against Lucas ‘Hulk’ Barbosa and the co-main event is just as impressive, with another of the promotion’s belts put on the line. The reigning light-heavyweight champion Pedro Marinho has had his defense against Rafael Lovato Jr rebooked for this event, and there will also be a number of superfights added to the main card. Alongside this match between Crevar and Maele, Tainan Dalpra will be making his no gi debut against Troy Russell.
FloGrappling announced the news that Helena Crevar would face Julia Maele at Who’s Number One 21 in an official post to their official Instagram account:
