Former ring girl turned UFC fighter Jeisla Chaves will make her UFC debut this weekend at UFC Fight Night: Muhammad vs. Bonfim against Yuneisy Duben in the women’s flyweight division. The Brazilian fighter, who earned a contract through Dana White’s Contender Series, recently spoke to Guilhereme Cruz from MMA Fighting about her unorthodox career path and how she balanced being both a fighter and a ring girl.
Chaves revealed that she had only been training Muay Thai for a month when her coach, who also ran a Muay Thai promotion where Chaves worked as a ring girl, promised that she would fight in the promotion within a year.
“I traded ring cards for gloves, and that’s when everything changed in my life,” Chaves said.
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She recalls, “At first, I thought he meant as a ring girl again. I said, ‘Okay, I’ll be there with you again. I’m glad you liked my work.’ He replied, ‘No, you’ll be there as my fighter.’ In less than a year, I had my first amateur Muay Thai fight at that event and became champion.”
“That was the moment everything changed,” she stated. “I loved it. I knew that was what I wanted for my life.”
Chaves has shared photos of herself as a ring girl on her Instagram:
Chaves Starts MMA Career
Eventually, Chaves learned jiu-jitsu and transitioned to MMA in 2023.
“I worked at events in my hometown and in the area, so some people where I’m from know me both as a ring girl and as a fighter,” Chaves said, recalling her past in her hometown of Poçoes in Bahia, Brazil.
She spoke on the difficulty of trying to fight, stating, “I started training professionally and gave up a lot of things.”
She revealed that she quit her job at a shoe factory and declined a job offer to teach geography at a local school.
She also ran into conflicts with her family, saying, “It’s not like my mom was against it, but she didn’t support it either because she would see me coming home injured, and I was the only girl training at the gym.”
Despite the roadblocks, Chaves amassed a 5-0 record in regional Brazilian MMA promotions until she got an opportunity to compete for a UFC contract on Dana White's Contender Series.
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UFC Debut
Last year in September, Chaves won a roster spot on the UFC after a three-round back-and-forth fight with Sofia Montenegro on Dana White’s Contender Series:
Chaves won the bout by split decision, but the fight was so exciting and impressive from both women that Dana White decided to sign Chaves and Montenegro.
Speaking of her experience on the show, Chaves believes, “That showed me that I’m stronger than I ever imagined. I think that fight, if it had happened in the UFC, definitely would have earned us a bonus. It was an amazing fight, exactly the way I like it.”
She will face the Venezuelan fighter, Yuneisy Duben, a fellow graduate of Dana White’s Contender Series. Duben earned her contract against Shannon Clark with an incredible knockout back in 2024:
Chaves hopes her fight with Duben will be filled with “A lot of action, a lot of exchanges and blood, and hopefully something similar to what happened on the Contender Series.”
She predicted, “It’s going to be a fight between two women who like to strike, the kind of fight people love to watch.”
