Larissa Pacheco has built one of the most compelling resumes in women’s mixed martial arts, earning two PFL season titles across different weight classes. Yet despite her record and a recent performance designed specifically to prove her readiness for the UFC’s bantamweight roster, she cannot get a response from the promotion beyond a polite rejection. She talked about it in a recent interview.
After parting ways with the PFL in 2025, Pacheco began targeting the UFC’s 135-pound (61.2 kg) division. To make her case on the scale, she accepted a Karate Combat bout in Miami in May 2026, where she made weight without issue and stopped Polish kickboxer Julia Stasiuk by knockout.
Her manager, Sam Lee, then reached out to UFC matchmaker Mick Maynard by email. The reply was brief: “I’m not interested, but thank you.”
For Pacheco, those few words left a lot unanswered.
“I don’t know what I’m missing. I don’t know what the problem is. I would like to understand more about it, you know? Like, ‘Hey Larissa, we don’t like you. You don’t sell for us.’ I don’t know. But I believe that’s not it. I don’t know if they’re trying to protect Kayla too. I don’t know if it’s about that.”
Pacheco’s first run with the UFC ended more than eleven years ago, when she was just 19 years old and, according to Lee, without the proper guidance or infrastructure around her. Even during that early period, the women she lost to went on to become UFC champions. The version of Pacheco that has emerged since bears little resemblance to that teenager.
Her record outside the UFC is dense with meaningful names. She holds a win over Kayla Harrison, who captured the UFC bantamweight title in 2025 by defeating Julianna Peña and has not lost since.
Their three PFL meetings between 2019 and 2022 ended with Pacheco claiming the final bout. She also holds victories over major names like Irene Aldana and submitted Karol Rosa.
And yet, the UFC remains unmoved. In the absence of a clear answer, Pacheco has been left to piece together what she can, including some things she has heard that are difficult to dismiss.
“I don’t know if it’s because of my appearance. I heard some comments that it could possibly be because they could trade a champion or have the possibility of having a champion who looks more like a man than their champion, who is a mother, who is blonde, has blue eyes. And I don’t know if that could be it. But I don’t think… I have nothing more to prove.”
Pacheco is raising the possibility that her marketability, or the way it compares to Harrison’s image as a blonde American mother and reigning champion, may be factoring into the UFC’s calculations in ways that have nothing to do with her record.
“I’m talking about things that are possibilities. But I would really like to have an answer.”
Sam Lee has taken a sharper tone. He contends that leaving Pacheco off the UFC roster simply cannot be justified given what she has accomplished and her willingness to face any available opponent.
He also points out that since Amanda Nunes retired, the bantamweight division has been without a true power finisher, and that Pacheco would fill that absence in a way few available competitors could.
Pacheco recently worked with Nunes ahead of UFC 324 and continues to train in São Paulo alongside submission grappling legend Demian Maia and Lucas Martins.
[Editor’s Note: Quotes have been translated and edited for clarity and readability.]
