Fast facts
- Division: Bantamweight (UFC)
- Record: 18-8
- Nationality: England
- Team/gym: Syndicate MMA; he also runs an MMA gym in Bishop Auckland
- Notable wins: Marlon Vera, Raphael Assunção, Jonathan Martinez, Louis Smolka, Martin Day
Davey Grant became a professional fighter because his friends thought he was making it up. He was 21, watching a fight with a group of mates, and he mentioned that he used to train. Nobody believed him. “I was watching a fight with my mates and I told them I used to do it. Nobody believed me because I’m not the kind of person that gets into fights, I just like to get along with people and have a laugh,” he said. So he went and won a fight to prove it, and somewhere in the proving he decided this was what he wanted to do with his life.
The groundwork was older than the bet. Grant started kickboxing at 14, added grappling later, and had his first amateur fight at 15, all while playing football and rugby as a teenager. By the time he signed with the UFC he had built a 9-1 record almost entirely on the English circuit, the kind of regional grind that doesn’t make highlight reels but teaches you how to keep showing up.
The show, and then the long wait
In September 2013, Grant was cast on The Ultimate Fighter: Team Rousey vs. Team Tate, picked for Ronda Rousey’s side. He submitted Danny Martinez in the second round to get into the house, then submitted Louis Fisette in the second round of the elimination stage. His semifinal opponent, Anthony Gutierrez, missed weight and was thrown off the show, which sent Grant straight to the final against Chris Holdsworth on Nov. 30, 2013, in Las Vegas. Holdsworth caught him with a rear-naked choke in Round 2.
What followed would have ended a lot of careers. Grant was booked against Roland Delorme on a card at London’s O2 Arena, made it through weigh-ins, and then had the fight cancelled the day before because of a torn meniscus. “I am devastated not to be fighting tonight,” he said, and he still showed up at the arena to support the other British fighters. Separate injuries to his knees, his ankle and his back kept him out for 25 months.
When he finally came back on Feb. 27, 2016, he beat Marlon Vera 30-26 on all three cards. That’s a name worth sitting with, given where Vera went afterward.
Then came UFC 204 on Oct. 8, 2016, and the moment that tells you most of what you need to know about him. Damian Stasiak locked in an armbar, and both men felt Grant’s arm crack. Twice. Grant didn’t tap until he was finished. “I think my arm might possible be broken. I felt it cracking when I was in the armbar but I just didn’t want to tap, it meant too much,” he said afterward.
Another 18 months passed. A staph infection scrapped his May 2018 date with Manny Bermudez, and when the fight was rebooked for July 2018, Grant was knocked down early and lost to a triangle choke. That left him 1-3 in the UFC, five years after his debut. Plenty of fighters with that résumé are back on the regional scene within a year.
The turn
Grant edged Grigory Popov by split decision in November 2019, and then something clicked. At UFC 251 in July 2020 he knocked out Martin Day in the third round for Performance of the Night. In March 2021 he knocked out Jonathan Martinez in Round 2 for another one.
The Vera rematch in June 2021 went the other way by unanimous decision, though it won Fight of the Night. So did his November 2021 split decision loss to Adrian Yañez, and in fairness to the judges that one wasn’t close in the press row: all 12 media scores went to Yañez.
In May 2022 he dropped Louis Smolka multiple times with punches and leg kicks before finishing him in Round 3. In March 2023 he stepped in for Kyler Phillips against Raphael Assunção and won by reverse triangle technical submission in the third, a finish that earned Performance of the Night, a Fan’s Choice Submission of the Year nomination at the UFC Honors, and Violent Money TV’s UK MMA Submission of the Year.
Watch that run and the style comes into focus. He can hurt you standing, he can strangle you on the mat, and his fights tend to be long, ugly, and worth watching. His six post-fight bonuses tie him with Rob Font, Marlon Vera and Song Yadong for fourth most in UFC bantamweight history. That’s a coach’s dream of a fighter, the kind who makes every card he’s on better.
The next result is the one that still stings. Against Daniel Marcos in July 2023, Grant lost a split decision that 12 of 14 media outlets scored for him. On the media scorecards, that’s a robbery, and it should be talked about that way.
Where he is now
An injury pulled him out of a March 2024 booking with Cody Gibson. He returned that December and beat Ramon Taveras by unanimous decision. An April 2025 fight with Daniel Santos fell through when Santos missed weigh-ins for medical reasons. In July 2025 he outpointed Da’Mon Blackshear, then got caught by a Charles Jourdain guillotine in the first round in October. He answered that loss on April 25, 2026, with a unanimous decision over promotional newcomer Adrián Luna Martinetti that earned both men Fight of the Night, his third such bonus.
He sits at No. 48 in Knockout Daily’s bantamweight rankings, which says more about the size of the division than about how dangerous he is on a given night. Life has moved, too. Grant and his wife, Sherrie, have two sons and a daughter, and the family now lives in Las Vegas, though he still runs his gym back in Bishop Auckland.
He’s become a valued training partner as well. Grant told MiddleEasy that he and Aljamain Sterling are helping Merab Dvalishvili get ready for Petr Yan at UFC 333, breaking down film and running five-round sessions. When elite bantamweights want to know what a long, hard fight feels like, it makes sense that they’d call the man who once wouldn’t tap with a cracking arm.
His own next assignment is Elijah Smith on Nov. 7 at UFC Fight Night 293, the Bonfim vs. Brady card. Grant turns 41 on Dec. 18. He’ll walk out roughly six weeks shy of that birthday, still the guy who started all this to win an argument.
