Fast facts
- Division: Women’s strawweight (No. 9 in Knockout Daily’s rankings)
- Record: 19-6
- Nationality: Brazilian
- Team/gym: Fight House
- Notable wins: Karolina Kowalkiewicz, Marina Rodriguez, Angela Hill, Polyana Viana
UFC 333 was a card built around men chasing history. Alexander Volkanovski defended his featherweight belt against Movsar Evloev, and Petr Yan and Merab Dvalishvili met for a third time at bantamweight. The night opened with a woman who has been quietly stacking wins since she was a teenager. Iasmin Lucindo was the first fight on the early prelims in Abu Dhabi on October 24, and when it was over, UFC Brasil’s account on X marked it plainly: a Lucindo win in the first fight of UFC 333. Later that night the same account grouped her with Daniel “Willycat” Santos as the Brazilian winners of the event.
She is 24 years old. She has been fighting professionally for nine years.
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Where she came from
Lucindo, full name Iasmin Lucindo Bezerra, was born January 8, 2002, in Brazil. Her start in combat sports had nothing to do with belts or contracts. According to her Wikipedia biography, she began training as a way to deal with domestic violence in her family. That is the whole of what the record says about it, and it’s enough. A kid walks into a gym for reasons that have nothing to do with sport, and the gym turns into a career.
She made her MMA debut in 2017 at 15. Before the UFC called, she had built a 13-4 record and won the Samurai Fight House women’s flyweight title. Four losses before the age most fighters take their first amateur bout is a particular kind of education. You learn early what it costs to lose, and you learn it in front of people.
The UFC years
Her UFC debut came August 13, 2022, at UFC on ESPN 41, where she replaced an injured Istela Nunes against Yazmin Jauregui. Both women were new to the promotion. Jauregui won a unanimous decision, and Lucindo, 20 years old, went home 0-1 in the UFC.
What followed is the stretch that defines her. In April 2023 she was booked against Melissa Martinez at UFC Fight Night 222, Martinez pulled out, and Lucindo ended up facing Brogan Walker in a flyweight bout instead. She took a unanimous decision. Four months later at UFC on ESPN 51, she met fellow Brazilian Polyana Viana and finished her with an arm-triangle choke in Round 2, which earned her a Performance of the Night bonus. It remains her only finish in the UFC.
Then came a stop. She was scheduled for a 120-pound catchweight fight at UFC Fight Night 227 in September 2023, the bout shuffled through a couple of opponents, and Lucindo withdrew with an undisclosed injury.
When she came back, the names got bigger. She beat Karolina Kowalkiewicz by unanimous decision at UFC 301 on May 4, 2024. Five months later at UFC 307 she edged Marina Rodriguez on a split decision. That’s three straight wins against opponents with real résumés, and the kind of run that tells matchmakers a fighter belongs in the conversation.
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The first true test of where she stood came at UFC 313 on March 8, 2025, against Amanda Lemos, a former strawweight title challenger. Lemos won a unanimous decision. Lucindo answered in August, outpointing Angela Hill on the cards at UFC on ESPN 72.
The suspension
She was booked against Gillian Robertson for December 13, 2025, then withdrew with what was first described as an undisclosed injury. Lemos took the fight instead. It later came out that the Nevada State Athletic Commission had temporarily suspended Lucindo after she failed a drug test in September, which was traced to a tainted supplement. The suspension ran nine months, and she wasn’t eligible to compete again until June 24, 2026.
Nine months is a long time for anyone. For a fighter in her early 20s who’d spent years climbing, it meant watching a division move without her.
UFC 333
Her return opponent was Nicolle Caliari, another Brazilian on the card. Caliari missed weight badly, coming in at 120.5 pounds, four and a half pounds over the strawweight non-title limit, and was fined 30 percent of her purse, which went to Lucindo. MMA Fighting’s staff predictions, which listed Lucindo at No. 11 in their global rankings, picked her to win. She did, by unanimous decision.
Knockout Daily’s rankings now have her at No. 9, with a 19-6 record.
How she wins
Look at the UFC ledger and a pattern jumps out. Of her six wins in the promotion, five went to the judges. The Viana submission is the lone stoppage. Both of her UFC losses were decisions too. Lucindo fights long fights, and she wins most of them.
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Some people will read that as a knock. I don’t. A fighter who keeps getting her hand raised after 15 minutes against Kowalkiewicz, Rodriguez and Hill is doing something right in every round, and the split over Rodriguez tells you she can win the close ones, which is a skill of its own. The Lemos loss is the honest measuring stick. It shows where the ceiling sat in March 2025, and nobody knows yet whether that ceiling has moved.
She’s also proven adaptable on the logistics side. She took her UFC debut as a replacement, accepted a change of opponent and a move to flyweight for her first win, and returned from a suspension to fight someone who couldn’t make the weight. None of that fazed her on the cards.
What she’s built
The sport loves a hype train, the prospect who wins three in a row and gets talked about like a future champion before anyone’s checked who she beat. Lucindo is the opposite story. She lost her UFC debut. She lost to the first former title challenger she faced. She lost nine months to a supplement. And every time, the next result was a win.
She has eight UFC fights at 24, a winning record against a list of recognizable strawweights, and a top 10 ranking that she earned the slow way. The next step is obvious: someone ranked above her, on a card where more people are watching than at an opening bout. A rematch with Lemos would be the cleanest measure of how far she’s come since UFC 313.
She turns 25 on January 8.
