Fast facts
- Division: Women’s bantamweight
- Record: 17-8
- Nationality: Russia
- Team/gym: American Top Team
- Notable wins: Miesha Tate, Macy Chiasson, Ketlen Vieira, Raquel Pa’aluhi (vacant Invicta FC bantamweight title), Marion Reneau, Chelsea Chandler
The first time most UFC fans saw Yana Santos, she was standing across from Cris Cyborg at UFC 222 on March 3, 2018, in a featherweight title fight that was her promotional debut. It lasted until 3:25 of Round 1. In MMA Mania’s preview of this weekend’s card, the writer put it bluntly, saying Santos was brought in as a quick sacrifice to Cyborg and has gone on to achieve far more than most people expected. Eight and a half years later, she’s still in the division’s top 10, she has won three straight, and on Saturday she fights a Brazilian a decade younger who happens to share her last name.
Murmansk, then St. Petersburg
She was born Yana Kunitskaya on November 11, 1989, in Murmansk, in northwestern Russia. The athletic genes were stacked on both sides. Her mother, Olga, was a professional gymnast, and her father, Joseph, was a pro skier. There’s a younger sister, Victoria.
Santos started taekwondo in preschool, which is about as early as a person can start anything. At 12 she was competing in hand-to-hand combat. At 16 she left home to live and study in St. Petersburg, where she joined the boxing team at Lesgaft National State University, and at 18 she began training MMA. Her résumé from those years reads like a striker collecting passports: a 2007 Russian taekwondo title, a 2011 Russian Muay Thai title, and a 2010 Bushido women’s MMA championship.
Her pro debut came on May 23, 2009, at a K-1 World Grand Prix event in Poland, and she stopped Magdalena Jarecka in the first round. The early record is mostly first-round TKOs on the European regional circuit, in Lithuania, Poland and Russia. The one that jumps off the page is December 10, 2010, at M-1 Challenge XXII, when she put away undefeated prospect Cindy Dandois in 34 seconds.
The years away
Then she stepped off the treadmill. On August 9, 2012, Santos announced she was pregnant with her first child, her son. In August 2013 she said she was finished competing and moving into coaching. That could have been the whole story, a talented regional striker who became somebody’s coach in St. Petersburg.
She came back three years later and signed with Invicta FC. On November 18, 2016, she beat Tonya Evinger for the bantamweight title, but on December 1 the result was overturned to a no contest and Evinger kept the belt. The rematch headlined Invicta FC 22 on March 25, 2017, and Evinger submitted her with a rear-naked choke in the second round. Santos didn’t stay down long. At Invicta FC 25 on August 31, 2017, she beat Raquel Pa’aluhi for the vacant title, and both the Evinger and Pa’aluhi fights earned her Performance of the Night.
How she actually wins
After Cyborg, Santos dropped to bantamweight and built a career the slow way. She outpointed Lina Länsberg 30-27 across the board at UFC 229, then Marion Reneau at UFC Fight Night 146. Aspen Ladd stopped her 33 seconds into Round 3 in December 2019, and she answered with decisions over Julija Stoliarenko and Ketlen Vieira.
The numbers tell you who she is. Santos is tied with Karol Rosa for third in decision-win percentage in UFC women’s bantamweight history (88.9%), second in significant strike accuracy (57.5%), and third in total strikes landed (1,275). That’s a fighter who hits what she aims at and keeps aiming for 15 minutes.
MMA Mania’s breakdown makes the case that the kickboxing label undersells her. Most of her wins, the preview argued, come from the clinch, where she wears people down with knees, elbows and plain size. The same piece pointed out the flaw that has followed her for years: big hitters rattle her. The record backs that up. Cyborg, Ladd and Irene Aldana are her three UFC stoppage losses, and Aldana finished her at 4:35 of Round 1 at UFC 264 in July 2021.
There’s a strange subplot running through her UFC run, too. Vieira came in two pounds heavy. Aldana missed by three and a half. Chelsea Chandler missed by five. Macy Chiasson missed by a pound and a half. Four opponents, four catchweights, and in each case part of the opponent’s purse went to Santos.
The hard stretch
The Aldana fight produced the ugliest chapter off the scale. After Santos and her fiancé, former UFC fighter and current PFL competitor Thiago Santos, announced on August 16, 2021, that they were expecting a child together, some fans speculated she had been pregnant against Aldana a month earlier. She denied it and noted that female fighters in Nevada have to pass pregnancy tests as part of standard prefight medicals. The couple had gotten engaged in December 2020 and are now married.
When she returned in 2023, things got harder. Holly Holm beat her by unanimous decision (30-26, 30-27) in March. In July, Chiasson withdrew and Karol Rosa stepped in at featherweight, and Santos lost a split decision. A broken nose then forced her out of a January 2024 booking with Norma Dumont. That’s three straight setbacks for a woman in her mid-30s, and plenty of fighters quietly fade from there.
Santos went the other way. She beat Chandler by unanimous decision in August 2024, then outworked former champion Miesha Tate at UFC on ESPN 67 in May 2025, then got her Chiasson fight at last at UFC 320 that October and won it on the cards. A planned April 2026 rematch of sorts with Dumont fell through when Santos withdrew for undisclosed reasons, and Joselyne Edwards took the spot.
Where she stands
The UFC Meta rankings, updated by MMA Mania after UFC 333, list Santos at No. 6 at 135 pounds. Our own Cagefile-based rankings have her eighth. Either way she sits behind Saturday’s opponent, Luana Santos, who is No. 4 in the Meta rankings and riding her own three-fight streak.
Luana is 26 and grounded in jiu-jitsu and judo, and MMA Mania described her as one of very few rising talents in the division, someone who has taken down and controlled most of her opponents. Her best win, per that preview, is Karol Rosa, the same woman who edged Yana on a split decision in 2023. The books agree with the youth. MMA Mania listed Yana at +180, and the Yahoo Sports and MMA Junkie card rundown had her at +205.
The matchup is clinch versus clinch, and the question is who owns it. If Luana can throw her and hold her, the younger fighter banks rounds. If Yana can stay upright against the fence and lean, the knees and elbows start adding up. MMA Mania picked Yana by decision, figuring Luana takes the first round on control time and fades as Yana surges in the second and third. I’d take that read too. Luana’s danger is her grappling, and Santos has lost to punchers, not grapplers.
The 135-pound bout is on the main card of UFC Fight Night 292, also billed as UFC Vegas 123, headlined by Renato Moicano vs. Tom Nolan at the Meta Apex in Las Vegas on Saturday, October 31. The main card starts at 8 p.m. ET on Paramount+.
