A year into MMA free agency, former two-division PFL champion Larissa Pacheco is growing frustrated with the lack of offers in the sport.<\/p>\n
Pacheco was let go by PFL<\/a> a year after her five-round war with Cris Cyborg and has since campaigned for deals with other promotions. An attempt to return to the UFC was fruitless, which she thinks was to \u201cprotect\u201d their bantamweight champion<\/a> Kayla Harrison, and other MMA promotions also wouldn\u2019t offer her deals.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s the biggest promotion in the world, so it kind of sets the rules for the market,\u201d Pacheco told MMA Fighting. \u201cAll the other fighters end up taking fights to perform well, win a belt, and get into the UFC. If they sign me, I\u2019ll hold up an entire division, holding up the progress of 10 or 15 girls who would otherwise make it into the promotion. We\u2019ve already tried KSW and Oktagon in Europe. We\u2019ve tried everywhere, and that\u2019s what keeps happening. It\u2019s another source of frustration because I want to be working. I\u2019m a high-level athlete.\u201d<\/p>\n Pacheco only competed once over the past two years, and it wasn\u2019t in a MMA bout. The 32-year-old ran through Julia Stasiuk at Karate Combat, a match she took to \u201cprove\u201d MMA promotions she could make 135 pounds after winning the 145- and 155-pound titles in PFL.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s been really difficult,\u201d Pacheco said. \u201cKarate Combat is a promotion that\u2019s giving me an opportunity and generating some hype, but it\u2019s not my sport. It\u2019s not an MMA event. That win proves that I can make weight, but it doesn\u2019t put me where I need to be, where I deserve to be. The market has kind of closed its doors on me, you know?<\/p>\n \u201cI know I\u2019m a high-level athlete and that I have what it takes to compete in the UFC or any other major promotion, but because of\u2026 Actually, it\u2019s something several promoters have already said: \u2018There\u2019s no athlete at Larissa\u2019s level. We\u2019re not going to be able to find an opponent. The athletes we can get will demand an outrageous amount of money to fight Larissa. And if she wins the belt, which is probably what\u2019s going to happen, she\u2019ll hold up the division for the girls who are close to getting into the UFC.\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s kind of frustrating, you know? It\u2019s sad, actually. It makes me really sad because I wanted to keep working. I\u2019m still very young, and I have a long career ahead of me. We\u2019ve already looked for opportunities in promotions all over the world, literally everywhere, and it\u2019s always the same answer. Even Karate Combat has a hard time finding an opponent who\u2019s willing to fight me.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s been almost three years since her last MMA victory, topping Marina Mokhnatkina via decision to claim the 2023 PFL featherweight season title and extend her winning streak to 10. Seven of those wins were first-round knockouts, plus a decision in a trilogy match with future UFC champion Kayla Harrison.<\/p>\n \u201cThe bad thing about this is that it kind of makes me fade into the background,\u201d Pacheco said of her forced layoff. \u201cPeople forget very quickly. People who follow the sport know me, remember me, and know what I\u2019ve done. But new fans, the audience that\u2019s constantly changing, end up forgetting about me.\u201d<\/p>\n The women\u2019s bantamweight division is the shallowest in the UFC today with less than 30 athletes under contract, and some wonder if major stars Harrison and Amanda Nunes will remain active after they face off for the title on Nov. 14 at Madison Square Garden. Pacheco defends that the 135-pound roster would benefit from her addition.<\/p>\n \u201cA lot of big names, including fighters, reporters, sponsors, and promotion officials, have been complaining about women\u2019s MMA,\u201d Pacheco said, but I look at that and think, man, that doesn\u2019t apply to me. It doesn\u2019t apply to me because I\u2019ve always gone out there and delivered exciting fights. I have very few fights that have gone to a decision, and every single one of those fights was a war. But all we hear is people complaining that women\u2019s fights are boring. It\u2019s hard to defend the division, but the people in charge of running the promotions are the ones who actually make the matchups.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t know what else to do anymore,\u201d she continued. \u201cWhat, do I need to fight a man for that? That\u2019s ridiculous, because I train with men every day. It\u2019s absurd. I don\u2019t know what else I can do to get another opportunity to fight in a major promotion. It\u2019s not even about money because I\u2019m simply looking for a fight. I\u2019ve already accepted extremely low purses just to be able to compete, but there really aren\u2019t any opponents available \u2014 and the people being approached are asking for an outrageous amount of money to fight me. I\u2019m willing to fight. I need some direction because I want to keep fighting.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not asking for a title fight. I\u2019m not asking to get into the UFC and fight Amanda or Kayla. I\u2019m not asking for that. I\u2019m asking for the opportunity to show what I can still do in this sport, you know? To show what I can bring, to give it everything I\u2019ve got. To pursue the best fight, the best knockout, the best submission, and deliver the kind of war I\u2019ve always delivered.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A year into MMA free agency, former two-division PFL champion Larissa Pacheco is growing frustrated with the lack…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":935362,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[49,48,641,701,638,82],"class_list":["post-935361","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-fighting","tag-latest-news","tag-mma","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/935361","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=935361"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/935361\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/935362"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=935361"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=935361"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=935361"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}