Who is Jessa Khan? 21-year-old Jiu-Jitsu world champion fails to impress inside ONE circle

21-year-old jiu-jitsu phenom Jessa Khan is an American-born Cambodian national who clinched gold at the 2023 IBJJF world champions. She holds a pro-grappling record of 18 wins against 11 losses.

During her stellar career, Khan has clinched numerous monumental achievements, including winning the 2022 IBJJF Pan American championships, finishing third at the 2021 IBJJF World Championship, 2021 IBJJF Pan Championship NOGI, and 2023 IBJJF European Open.

Despite being born in Texas, Jessa and her family had constantly to move as her father was a naval officer. Interestingly, her first introduction to martial arts was not in jiu-jitsu, but in Karate.

However, once her family moved to Hawaii, she could no longer access the Japanese martial art. Soon, she started training for jiu-jitsu under the Onzuka Brothers and Shane Agena at O2 Martial Arts.

On September 29, Khan made her long-awaited One Championship grappling debut as she took on former foe Danielle Kelly at the ONE Fight Night 14: Stamp vs. Ham, in an atomweight title bout.

Unfortunately, the 21-year-old faltered under the bright lights as she succumbed to a unanimous decision loss to Kelly.

Watch Jessa Khan vs. Danielle Kelly below:

At ONE Fight Night 14, promotional superstar Stamp Fairtex cliched the One Women's atomweight world championship with a third-round TKO victory over South Korea's Seo Hee Ham.

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Why was Jessa Khan intimidated by Karate?

Despite now being one of the best women's jiu-jitsu athletes in the world, Jessa Khan was intimidated to continue her karate training during her childhood.

During an interview with ONEFC.com, the 2023 IBJJF world champion said the abundance of black belts at her karate dojo prompted her to make the switch to jiu-jitsu:

"Initially, I was going to start training karate again, but then I got kind of intimidated because, you know, in karate, kids tend to get their black belts a lot quicker... At the time, I was, I think, only a yellow belt or something. So that intimidated me a lot, that the whole school was all black belts. So my dad ended up finding a jiu-jitsu academy. "

Jessa Khan is now a kids' instructor at the Art of Jiu-Jitsu Academy in Costa Mesa, California, where she makes it her mission to emulate the same supportive environment that helped her develop her own jiu-jitsu talents.