Larissa Pacheco is a year into free agency, she holds wins at 145 and 155 pounds and a decision over the current UFC bantamweight champion, and nobody will sign her. The Brazilian told MMA Fighting that her attempt to return to the UFC went nowhere, and she believes the promotion kept her out to protect Kayla Harrison. The rest of the market, in her telling, took its cue from there.
“It’s the biggest promotion in the world, so it kind of sets the rules for the market,” Pacheco said.
Her read on the logic is blunt. Most promotions function as feeders, and she says signing a fighter of her level jams the pipeline. “If they sign me, I’ll hold up an entire division, holding up the progress of 10 or 15 girls who would otherwise make it into the promotion,” she said, adding that her team already approached KSW and Oktagon in Europe and heard the same answer. Pacheco said several promoters have told her this directly. They can’t find anyone at her level, the opponents they can find want outrageous money to face her, and if she wins the belt (which they expect) she’d sit on top of the division and block the women close to a UFC call.
View post on X
How she got here
PFL let Pacheco go a year after her five-round war with Cris Cyborg. Her last MMA win came almost three years ago, a decision over Marina Mokhnatkina that took the 2023 PFL featherweight season title and pushed her winning streak to 10. Seven of those 10 were first-round knockouts. Another was a decision over Harrison in the third fight of their trilogy, before Harrison went on to UFC gold.
In the two years since, Pacheco has competed once, and it wasn’t MMA. She ran through Julia Stasiuk at Karate Combat, a fight she took specifically to prove to MMA promoters she could make 135 pounds. The phone still didn’t ring. “That win proves that I can make weight, but it doesn’t put me where I need to be, where I deserve to be,” she said. She added that even Karate Combat has trouble finding someone willing to face her.
The 32-year-old said she has already accepted extremely low purses just to compete, and that she’s asking for an opportunity instead of a title shot. “I’m not asking to get into the UFC and fight Amanda or Kayla,” she said. She also pushed back on the complaint that women’s fights are boring, pointing out that few of hers have gone to the judges. “What, do I need to fight a man for that? That’s ridiculous, because I train with men every day.”
View post on X
The timing stings. UFC women’s bantamweight is the thinnest division on the roster, with fewer than 30 fighters under contract, and Harrison defends against Amanda Nunes on Nov. 14 at Madison Square Garden amid questions about how long either stays active.
The idea that Pacheco would clog up a division falls apart against a division that barely has a division’s worth of fighters. Pacheco finishes people in the first round, she already beat the champion once, and she cut to 135 on a karate card to prove a point nobody asked her to prove. If Harrison or Nunes walks away after Nov. 14, the UFC will need a contender with a story attached, and the best one is sitting at home in Brazil waiting for a contract.
