Fast facts
- Division: Women’s flyweight (PFL)
- Record: 11-3
- Nationality: American
- Team/gym: Alliance Jiu-Jitsu San Diego
- Notable wins: Kana Watanabe, Ekaterina Shakalova, Luana Santos, Elina Kallionidou, Ariane Lipski da Silva
The gyms went quiet in 2020, and so did the jiu-jitsu tournament circuit. For most black belts that meant waiting it out. Jena Bishop went into the cage world instead. She trained with former UFC title challenger Cat Zingano, worked her corner, and sparred with Angela Hill, and by 2021 she was a professional mixed martial artist. She was 35 years old.
Five years later she’s 11-3 and headlining PFL Chicago 2 on Friday, October 16, against Liz Carmouche, the woman who stopped her in the third round of the 2025 PFL women’s flyweight tournament final. The rematch is for the PFL women’s flyweight championship. ESPN describes Carmouche as the PFL’s titleholder and notes this will be the sixth rematch of her career, which tells you something about how often she has been asked to answer the same question twice, and how often she has had to.
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St. Charles, a husband, and one coach
Bishop grew up in St. Charles, Missouri, outside St. Louis, a high school track and cross country runner, which is a decent background for someone who would later spend 15 minutes trying to break other people’s elbows. She didn’t find jiu-jitsu on her own. Her future husband, Tyler Bishop, introduced her to it in 2007.
What happened next is the kind of gym story I love. JW Wright promoted her through every belt, white to black, and tied the black one around her waist on July 13, 2013. One coach, one student, six years. Coaches like that rarely get their names printed anywhere, so here it is.
The results came fast once she got going. She took silver at purple belt lightweight at the 2012 IBJJF World Championship, then won the brown belt lightweight world title in 2013 and took bronze in the open class the same year. She moved to San Diego in 2016. Her 2017 was absurd: the IBJJF World No-Gi Championship at black belt lightweight, double gold in her weight and the open class at the World Master Championship, the same double at the Pan Championship and the European Championship, and the American Nationals for good measure. In 2019 she joined Alliance Jiu-Jitsu San Diego, won the under-60 kg bracket at the second ADCC North American Trials, and reached the quarterfinals at the ADCC World Championship.
All told, she’s an 11-time medalist across the IBJJF World, World No-Gi and World Master championships. Then the pandemic hit, and she pointed all of it at a cage.
The style
Bishop is a grappler, and the numbers don’t hide it. Seven of her 11 professional wins have come by submission. The other four went to decisions, and it’s fair to read those as fights where opponents survived on the mat rather than fights she spent standing and trading.
The PFL posted a technique breakdown on X this week with Bishop walking through an armbar from her PFL debut, which is the right instinct from the promotion. If you want to understand this fight, you watch her hands find a wrist.
The rise
She signed with Legacy Fighting Alliance for her debut and went 4-0 there. She submitted Helen Lucero at LFA 116 in October 2021 and Olivia Beeskau at LFA 145 in October 2022, and won decisions over Dione Barbosa and Luana Santos.
Bellator signed her to a multi-fight deal that same October. In February 2023 she went to Dublin for Bellator 291 and beat Elina Kallionidou by unanimous decision. That October, at Bellator 300 in San Diego, her adopted home, she armbarred Ilara Joanne in the first round.
The losses that shaped her
When the PFL bought Bellator, Bishop landed in the 2024 women’s flyweight season, and that’s where the sport started charging tuition. She submitted Chelsea Hackett in the first round at PFL 1. Then she dropped a split decision to Taila Santos at PFL 4 in June, and Dakota Ditcheva stopped her in the semifinals at PFL 7 that August.
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She came back to the 2025 World Tournament and fought her way to the final. She beat Kana Watanabe by unanimous decision in April, then choked out Ekaterina Shakalova with a rear-naked choke in the second round of the June semifinal in Wichita, Kansas. On August 15, 2025, at PFL 9 in Charlotte, North Carolina, she met Carmouche, the former Bellator champion, and was stopped in the third round.
It’s worth sitting with that path for a second. Two of her three losses came against elite opposition in tournament settings, and the third was a split decision. None of them came against anyone you’d call a soft touch.
Where she stands
When the PFL introduced official rankings in January 2026, Bishop sat seventh at women’s flyweight. She has spent this year making that number look stale. In April at PFL Chicago she submitted Borena Tsertsvadze in the first round. In June at PFL San Diego she armbarred former UFC fighter Ariane Lipski da Silva, also in the first round. As of August the PFL had her fourth in the division. (Cagefile’s broader data, which ranks women’s flyweights across promotions, has her at No. 20.)
Two first-round finishes after a loss in a final is the kind of response you want from someone who has been doing this for five years and competing at the highest level of grappling for well over a decade. She isn’t a three-fight hype job. She has been to the deep end of two tournaments, lost in both, and kept showing up.
Bishop went on MMA Junkie Radio on Monday ahead of the fight, and MMA Junkie’s Spinning Back Clique panel was set to make picks for the title bout the same night.
What’s next
The rematch with Carmouche is the main event of PFL Chicago 2 on Friday, October 16, 2026. The early card starts at 6 p.m. ET on the ESPN app, and the main card airs at 11 p.m. ET on ESPN2.
Carmouche has the win from Charlotte and the rematch experience. Bishop has the better recent form, two arm locks in her last three wins, and something harder to measure: the patience of a woman who waited six years under one coach for a black belt and five years in a cage for this exact night. If the fight hits the mat in the first round the way her last two did, she knows where the elbow is.
