Larissa Pacheco is the last woman to beat Kayla Harrison, and the UFC told her in writing that it doesn’t want her. The former PFL lightweight champion said matchmaker Mick Maynard sent her an email saying the promotion wasn’t interested. She told MMA Fighting this week that she’s run out of answers.
“I don’t know what else I need to do to have an opportunity, I’m not asking for a title fight,” Pacheco said. “I’m not asking to get into the UFC and fight Amanda (Nunes) or Kayla. I’m not asking for that. I’m asking for an opportunity to show what I can still do in the sport, you know?”
That’s about as modest a pitch as you’ll hear from someone with her résumé. No callout, no demand for a belt. She wants a contract and an opponent.
The problem, as she tells it, doesn’t stop at the UFC’s door. Pacheco said other offers haven’t followed since the rejection. “The market has kind of closed its doors on me, you know?” she said. “It’s sad, it actually makes me really sad.”
The Harrison connection is why UFC fans keep bringing her up. Pacheco beat Harrison in 2022 to win the PFL lightweight title. Harrison is now the UFC women’s bantamweight champion, which means the most obvious unfinished rivalry in women’s MMA is sitting outside the building. Pacheco left the PFL last October, and the calls for the UFC to sign her started almost immediately.
Those calls got louder after she landed a tomahawk elbow knockout in Karate Combat. That’s a highlight-reel finish in a ruleset most MMA fighters wouldn’t touch, and she did it anyway.
The numbers back her up too. Pacheco is 32, and 19 of her 23 professional wins have come by finish. The detail that should matter most to a matchmaker: in her last fight she made 135 pounds for the first time since 2014. Weight was the obvious knock on putting her at bantamweight. She just took that argument off the table.
Bloody Elbow, which first highlighted her comments, put the snub alongside some other head-scratching UFC roster decisions. Earlier this week the promotion cut Farid Basharat, who was 16-0, and fans were not happy about it. A few weeks before that, the UFC released Michael Page despite a four-fight win streak inside the Octagon. Spotless records and win streaks apparently don’t guarantee much right now.
My take: the UFC has a bantamweight champion whose most recent loss belongs to a woman who now makes 135 and finishes almost everybody she beats. The company didn’t make a counteroffer or float a prelim slot. It sent an email. I don’t need Pacheco fighting Harrison in her first walk to the cage. I’d settle for Maynard booking her against anyone in the top 15 and letting the Karate Combat elbow do the rest of the negotiating.
