Natalia Silva

Natália Miranda Cristina da Silva is a Brazilian mixed martial artist who competes in the women's flyweight division of the UFC.

Silva was born in Minas Gerais, Brazil, where she first took up taekwondo as a teenager through a community social project. Friends later encouraged her to try mixed martial arts, and she began competing on the Brazilian regional circuit despite having little grappling background at the outset. Her development accelerated after she joined Team Borracha, a gym in Contagem, Minas Gerais, that gave her training facilities and housing while she built her career on the regional scene.

Silva holds a purple belt in taekwondo and a blue belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. Before signing with the UFC, she won and defended the Jungle Fight women's flyweight championship, establishing herself as one of the top prospects on Brazil's regional circuit.

Silva's game is built around unorthodox, taekwondo-influenced striking that produces kicks from unusual angles, paired with an unusually flexible, athletic frame that lets her generate power and mobility uncommon in the division. She pairs that kicking arsenal with credible ground skills, scrambling confidently for position and showing a particular knack for locking up armbars once a fight hits the mat, giving her finishing threats both at distance and on the canvas.

Since debuting in the Octagon, Silva has built her reputation with victories over a run of established names in the strawweight and flyweight ranks, including former champions Jéssica Andrade, Alexa Grasso, and Rose Namajunas, performances that drew Fight Night bonuses and cemented her standing as a consistent threat near the top of the division.

Silva has emerged as one of women's flyweight's most distinctive competitors, an unorthodox, technically gifted striker-grappler whose path from a small-town taekwondo program to the sport's biggest stage has made her one of the division's defining figures.