Larissa Pacheco was one of the most victorious female fighters outside of the UFC over the past five years, winning two seasons of the Professional Fighters League and handing Kayla Harrison her only MMA loss. Despite all that, she feels that the future of her career could depend on Friday’s official weigh-ins for Karate Combat 61 in Miami.
Pacheco became a free agent after parting ways with PFL in October 2025 and immediately started campaigning for a spot in the UFC. Her last PFL bout was a decision
defeat to Cris Cyborg, so she made herself open to fighting elsewhere to then re-enter the octagon off a victory more than a decade after her first run in the promotion.
Things didn’t go as planned, though.
“There haven’t been many offers,” Pacheco said. “I think people are too focused on the [PFL season] prize money and thinking, ‘Oh, we don’t have the budget to pay Larissa.’ But I need to work. I want to work. It goes beyond money. I need to stay active, stay in the spotlight, make people understand that I’m still an athlete in my prime, still young. I’m 31 years old, and I have the potential to fight for a UFC belt or any other promotion right now.”
The other major issue is weight. Pacheco won two PFL seasons — cashing $1 million each time — for winning at lightweight and featherweight, but the UFC doesn’t have either division. Pacheco hasn’t fought at 135 pounds since 2015, when she lost to Germaine de Randamie and Jessica Andrade in the UFC.
Pacheco will return to bantamweight this week, and stepping on the scale at 135 pounds on May 1, a day before entering the Karate Combat pit to face Julia Stasiuk, will be a message to the MMA world.
“It’s not just about ‘I need to prove it to the UFC,’ but the UFC is still the organization that sets the standard for weight classes for the rest of the sport,” Pacheco said. “My ideal weights are 155 and 145. I feel strong, I feel big, I can carry a lot of muscle mass, you know? I feel good there. But I need to work. Regardless of whether the UFC calls me or any other promotion does, I need to be fit for the division so I can step in there, fight, and deliver a good performance.”
Pacheco admits “I never imagined I’d be able to make 135 again,” but the sport is more professional now than back when she was a 20-year-old entering the UFC for the first time. With more money in the bank and the ability of hiring more professionals and resources around her, Pacheco realized “it was doable.”
“I talked to my doctor, ‘I need you to tell me if I can make 135, otherwise I’m really going to put an end to this and say, well, that’s it, that’s what I could do,’” Pacheco said. “And they told me, ‘Larissa, it’s doable. You’ll feel it a bit the first time, maybe the second, but it’ll be like making 145 again.’ I said, ‘Alright, let’s go. If you’re telling me it can be done safely, then let’s do it.’ And it’s happening.”
Truth is, Pacheco considered leaving MMA if doctors said it wouldn’t be safe for her to hit bantamweight again.
“I wouldn’t fight MMA anymore,” Pacheco said. “I’d probably move to jiu-jitsu or invest in something else. I don’t know. I’ll never be able to stop training or stop fighting, but I would channel that into something different and explore other areas of my life. I know I’ll never be able to live without fighting, but I’m also not going to risk my life or my future goals if the job no longer gives me opportunities.”
“I want to have kids, I want to have a family,” she continued. “My job doesn’t really support long-term longevity unless we start taking care of things now. I mean, imagine taking blows to the head every day, punches and everything. We already know most of the injuries that can happen. I want to be able to pass on what I’ve learned in life, my growth as a human being, to a son or daughter, to share the art, to continue the sport as well. I know I still have a lot to show people, especially those close to me, the people I love, I want to be present with them. I don’t want to end up not recognizing anyone. I don’t want to risk something like that now when I’m so close. If that hadn’t been possible, I would most likely have retired.
“The PFL is no longer had a path for me, but if another organization does, and they’re interested, I’m here. I want to work. I’d even switch, go into boxing or something else, but I need to work. I need to compete while I still have time, while I still have the health for it. I don’t want to look back and feel frustrated, thinking, ‘I could’ve tried and didn’t.’ I have the potential. My record and my performances speak for themselves. I don’t need to prove much here, everyone knows it.”
Pacheco was part of Amanda Nunes’ camp for a UFC 324 fight with Kayla Harrison in January, which got cancelled due to injury to the champion. At the time she was walking around at 165 pounds, but already started trimming down in hopes of getting something booked at bantamweight.
“We were kind of frustrated because we wanted to work,” Pacheco said, “but there’s this stigma around me like, ‘Larissa can’t make weight, Larissa can’t make weight.’ Man, I’m already very close to the weight and this fight will be at 135. It wasn’t exactly the kind of camp I wanted, especially because Karate Combat calls fights on short notice, but I already had it in my head that we could fight on May 2.”
Pacheco’s ultimate dream is returning to the UFC, especially if Harrison is on the opposite side of the cage for a fourth clash — Harrison beat her twice via decision in PFL, but lost the trilogy. Being back to the UFC, she said, would give her the chance to show “everything I’ve evolved over these years.”
“People were questioning me on Instagram, ‘Why not the UFC?’ Because the UFC doesn’t want me yet,” Pacheco said. “I think they want me to take a test fight, make weight [at 135], prove it somehow. Eventually, there will come a point where they won’t have any excuses left. Then it’ll just be, ‘We don’t want Larissa here.’ That’ll be the only reason. I’ll keep pushing for an opportunity to get in, but if not, there are other promotions like MVP, promotions in Russia, Poland. There are events all over the world.”
