Jena Bishop is an experienced BJJ black belt and an ADCC veteran, and she’s about to make her Bellator debut at Bellator 291 on February 25th, 2023. She has been a top competitor on the professional grappling scene for quite a few years, leading up to her big win at the ADCC North American west coast trials in 2019. That booked her a place at ADCC 2019 where she made a valiant effort to take home gold but came up against tough opposition in the opening round, in the form of Beatriz ‘Bia’ Mesquita.
She continued competing in professional grappling for a while after that, but in 2021 Bishop decided it was time for a change in her combat sports career. She made the transition to professional MMA and ended up making her debut at LFA 116, where she submitted Helen Lucero in the very first round. She fought once again before the end of the year, winning a unanimous decision against Dione Barbosa. The next year went just as successfully for Bishop as she won a split decision against Luana Santos at LFA 135, before she registered another first-round submission against Olivia Beeskau.
Now Jena Bishop is preparing to make her Bellator debut, as she’s putting her perfect undefeated record on the line against Elina Kallionidou at Bellator 291 on February 25th, 2023. This will likely be the toughest test of Bishop’s MMA career so far, as Kallionidou has more than three times as much experience as her in the cage. Kallionidou has a 9-4 professional record and has already fought for Bellator on six different occasions, even facing tough veterans of the sport like Bec Rawlings and Kate Jackson.
Jena Bishop v Elina Kallionidou will take place on the preliminary card of Bellator 291, which sees the promotion travel to Dublin, Ireland to put on an event. The headline match of the night will be a title-unification bout between Yaroslav Amosov and Logan Storley, the second fight between the two top welterweight fighters on the Bellator roster.
