UFC Kansas City newcomer Bruna Brasil wished to be a sports activities star, however her dream solely actually paid off along with her third try. On Saturday night time, the Contender Sequence signee makes her official octagon debut in a strawweight bout towards Denise Gomes in Missouri.
Born in Paranavai, a small city positioned 300 miles away from Curitiba, Brasil dreamed of being an expert soccer participant and following the footsteps of the legendary Brazilian athlete Marta. As a young person, she discovered success and inked a take care of Foz Cataratas, a soccer membership that has gained main titles in Brazil all through the previous decade.
However then all fell aside — and Brasil needed to discover one other approach.
“Soccer was an enormous frustration for me,” she mentioned on MMA Preventing’s Trocação Franca. “I attempted beginning a profession once I was 17, however once I was launched [from my contract,] I used to be very, very upset. I had some provides, however I wouldn’t be capable of pay my payments.”
“[My salary] was ridiculous, and [$400] was simply pathetic for the women who additionally performed for the [Brazilian] nationwide staff,” she continued. “That was very irritating. To get to Marta’s stage was onerous by itself, and on high of that you’ve cliques, you’ll want to be nice and have charisma. Every little thing has to work completely, and issues didn’t go the best way I wished.”
Brasil in the end gave up soccer and determined to go to varsity. She graduated in accounting with the intention to “be good at one thing,” she mentioned, however Brasil nonetheless wanted competitors in her life, even simply as a method to keep in form. That’s why she joined a kickboxing class.
“I felt free once I was preventing,” Brasil mentioned. “It was good as a result of I didn’t rely upon others to cross me a ball, it was all on me. It was simpler as a result of I had the management of the entire state of affairs.
“Typically I’m wondering if I stop too simply [from soccer], if I used to be too onerous on myself. I used to be pissed off with the best way every little thing occurred and the best way I accepted it, however when martial arts got here, [it was] a approach for me to make peace with myself — that younger woman that had a dream, to pay her again for in some way failing.”
Brasil quickly realized that kickboxing barely paid good cash too, however watching Anderson Silva and Ronda Rousey shine within the UFC launched her to a complete new world: MMA.
She wasn’t prepared, although.
“My first MMA struggle, I just about didn’t perceive a lot about MMA {and professional} information,” Bruna mentioned. “I did it for the fun to struggle MMA. I solely started to grasp about MMA after that, coaching jiu-jitsu and altering my mindset and other people round me. Successful or shedding in kickboxing, or having a constructive or detrimental file in [kickboxing], didn’t have the identical significance that it does in MMA.”
Brasil misplaced to future UFC fighter Ariane Carnelossi through first-round TKO in her November 2014 skilled debut. She didn’t return to motion till preventing to a attract early 2017. Brasil then clinched her first MMA win two months later with a choice, however misplaced to future Invicta FC champion Jessica Delboni by stoppage later that yr, injuring her knee within the course of.
“I felt blessed with how issues occurred after that struggle,” Brasil mentioned. “I used to be capable of have surgical procedure and bodily remedy and all of the assist I wanted. I spent a complete yr [recovering] and pondering, ‘Rattling, God actually desires me to return again, he desires one thing out of me. I by no means imagined having that assist and so many individuals coming collectively for me.”
Brasil moved to Rio de Janeiro in 2019 to lastly dive head-first in MMA as her profession.
“That’s when it began,” Brasil mentioned. “It was all or nothing. I bought every little thing I had, left my job and went to Rio de Janeiro. There was no approach again, it needed to occur.”
