Years before winning the 2022 PFL Women’s Lightweight and 2023 Featherweight titles, Larissa Pacheco’s fledgling MMA career was nearly over before it started. 

Pacheco began training extensively in Muay Thai as a teenager and started competing as an amateur Bantamweight in 2012. However, her first major MMA opportunity came in 2014. Pacheco made her UFC debut at Fight Night: Bigfoot vs. Arlovski as a last-minute replacement for an injured Valérie Létourneau. 

In round one, Pacheco lost by submission to Jéssica Andrade by submission.

Things got even worse for Pacheco when she returned to the Octagon for UFC 185 in 2015. In the second round, Germaine de Randamie landed a devastating side kick to Pacheco’s arm and shattered it. 

Pacheco lost via TKO that night and spent the next three years of her life recovering.

Following her injury, the UFC dropped Pacheco from its roster, but she never gave up on her dream fighting professionally. Pacheco returned to her home country, Brazil, where she underwent two painful surgeries on her arm before resuming her training.

Opportunity came knocking once again in 2017 when Pacheco received an offer to compete as a Featherweight on UFC TV’s The Ultimate Fighter 28. 

It wasn’t until 2019, four years after the UFC dropped her, that Pacheco’s staggering comeback began. That year, she signed with the Professional Fighters League and has been nearly unstoppable since.

After years of losing to American Kayla Harrison each time they matched up, Pacheco delivered one of the greatest upsets in PFL history in 2022. In the middle of an already stellar season for Pacheco, she finally defeated Harrison in the Women’s Lightweight finals, kicking her legacy as one of MMA’s greatest athletes. 

With nothing but momentum behind her, Pacheco stands poised and ready to defend her title against legendary Cris Cyborg at Battle of the Giants. 

When you think of the greatest athletes of their generation, it’s easy to imagine names like Michael Jordan, Serena Williams, or Simone Biles. 

But without hyperbole, there’s good reason to add Cris Cyborg to that list. Cyborg dominates in every MMA league she joins, capturing title belts in Bellator, UFC, Strikeforce, and Invicta. Although her professional fighting career started with a loss to Erica Paes in 2005, Cyborg remained undefeated for the next 13 years.

To call Cris Cyborg an “elite fighter” would be a massive understatement. 

With only two career losses in nearly 20 years, Cyborg has an extensive vocabulary of MMA fighting styles. Muay Thai, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, wrestling—Cyborg is lethal in all of them. She even gave boxing a try in 2022 and emerged from the ring with a pair of wins. 

Now, she’s gearing up to continue her reign of domination in her PFL debut at Battle of the Giants.

Comparatively, Pacheco is still ascending in her professional fighting career with years of major events ahead to prove herself. Cyborg, on the other hand, has nothing left to prove. She is, arguably, the greatest female fighter of all time.

Kayla Harrison, the only PFL fighter to defeat Pacheco, speculates that Cyborg’s age will ultimately cost her the fight. Pacheco is known for her speed and unrelenting approach, which may prove too much for Cyborg. 

And though Pacheco has been on an incredible tear, not dropping a fight since 2021, that still pales in comparison to Cyborg’s 13-year undefeated streak.