Fast facts
- Division: Women’s strawweight (UFC)
- Record: 23-4
- Nationality: Brazilian
- Team/gym: Fight House
- Notable wins: Amanda Lemos, Marina Rodriguez, Yan Xiaonan, Loopy Godínez, Felice Herrig, Tabatha Ricci, Mizuki Inoue (Invicta title)
Some fights refuse to happen. Virna Jandiroba and Tatiana Suarez were first supposed to meet on Aug. 5, 2023, at UFC on ESPN 50, until Jandiroba’s knee needed surgery and Jéssica Andrade took the spot. They were rebooked for UFC 310 on Dec. 7, 2024, and that one vanished too when Suarez reportedly withdrew with an unspecified health issue. Now, more than three years after the original date, the two strawweights are scheduled for Nov. 7, 2026, at UFC Fight Night 293, the card headlined by Gabriel Bonfim and Sean Brady.
Jandiroba already knows what she wants on the other side of it. MiddleEasy reported that she is targeting a third fight with champion Mackenzie Dern in early 2027, and Sherdog wrote that she expects a high-level grappling battle with Suarez first. Neither part of that plan is modest. Both make sense once you see how she got here.
Kung fu, then the mat
Jandiroba, born May 30, 1988, started in kung fu as a kid. She later moved to judo and Brazilian jiu-jitsu, and she only crossed over to MMA once she had her black belt in hand. That order of operations explains almost everything about how she fights. She arrived in the cage as a finished grappler and spent the following decade teaching herself the rest.
She turned pro in 2013 and built her record mostly in Brazil, going 11-0 before Invicta signed her. The fighters who come up that way, far from the big cards and fighting whoever is willing, tend to develop a particular patience. Jandiroba has it in bulk.
The Invicta years
Her Invicta debut came on Dec. 8, 2017, at Invicta FC 26, and she needed one round to armbar Amy Montenegro. Three months later she was in a title fight she hadn’t been booked for. Janaisa Morandin, her scheduled opponent at Invicta FC 28, pulled out with a tooth infection, and Mizuki Inoue stepped in. The scorecards read 49-46, 46-49, 49-46, a split decision that tells you how close it was, and Jandiroba left with the strawweight belt.
She got the Morandin fight anyway on Sept. 1, 2018, at Invicta FC 31, and submitted her in the second round to retain. Inoue, for what it’s worth, is still around: she sits at No. 11 in the Meta Rankings MMA Mania published Oct. 20.
The loss that built her
Her UFC debut on April 27, 2019, was another short-notice job. Lívia Renata Souza got hurt, Jandiroba replaced her against former champion Carla Esparza at UFC Fight Night 150, and she lost a unanimous decision. It was the first loss of her professional career. She has since credited that night with the growth that followed, which is the kind of thing fighters often say and rarely prove. She proved it.
That December her UFC on ESPN 7 opponent changed twice, from Cortney Casey to Souza to Mallory Martin, and Jandiroba submitted Martin in Round 2. At UFC 252 in August 2020 she armbarred Felice Herrig in the first round for Performance of the Night. Against Kanako Murata in June 2021, her armbar dislocated Murata’s elbow and the doctor stopped it after the second round.
The path wasn’t smooth. She dropped decisions to Dern at UFC 256 in December 2020 and to Amanda Ribas at UFC 267 in October 2021. What followed was the best stretch of her career: a decision over Angela Hill in May 2022, then Marina Rodriguez at UFC 288, then Loopy Godínez in March 2024, then a second-round armbar of Amanda Lemos that July for her second UFC Performance of the Night, then Yan Xiaonan at UFC 314 in April 2025. Five straight, with a knee surgery stuck in the middle. MMA Fighting named her to its 2024 Third Team All-Stars.
How she actually wins
The numbers are almost comic in how lopsided they are. Jandiroba holds the record for most control time in UFC women’s strawweight history at 1:14:52, and the record for most top-position time at 1:01:53. Her 36 takedowns tie Cláudia Gadelha and Godínez for second in division history. Her 16 submission attempts tie her for the most ever at 115 pounds with, of all people, Dern.
Watch her work and the style is easy to read. She gets you down, she stays on top, and she hunts the arm. Four of her finishes in Invicta and the UFC came from armbars. The decisions are the same method without the ending: long rounds of top pressure that wear on opponents until the scorecards follow.
Dern, twice
Which brings us back to the other black belt with the matching submission count. On Oct. 25, 2025, at UFC 321, Jandiroba and Dern met again for the vacant strawweight title after Zhang Weili’s reign ended. Dern won a unanimous decision, the second time she had beaten Jandiroba on the cards, and has since defended against Gillian Robertson at UFC 330 in August, as Bloody Elbow noted.
Jandiroba didn’t sulk. She came back on April 4, 2026, at UFC Fight Night 272 and beat Tabatha Ricci by unanimous decision. As of the Oct. 20 Meta Rankings she is No. 2 at strawweight, behind Zhang and one spot ahead of Suarez. The Cagefile data Knockout Daily tracks lists her at No. 4. She was also No. 11 on the UFC women’s pound-for-pound list as of March 24, 2026.
What’s next
Asking for a trilogy against someone who is 2-0 against you is a hard sell, and Jandiroba has to earn the pitch the old-fashioned way. Suarez is ranked directly behind her in the Meta Rankings, which makes Nov. 7 something close to a title eliminator whether the UFC labels it one or not. It’s also a matchup of two people who would prefer to fight on the floor, so somebody’s game plan is going to break.
I like her chances, mostly because of the record books. A fighter who owns the division’s control-time and top-position marks has spent more minutes on top of strawweights than anyone who has ever done this, and Suarez will have to keep her off for 15 minutes. If Jandiroba gets through it, she turns 39 next May with a clear argument for Dern in early 2027. First she has to make it to Nov. 7 with an opponent still across the cage, which with this pairing has never once been guaranteed.
