UFC flyweight star Luana Santos can do everything. The UFC flyweight is the next generation of millennial fighters in the Dana White-led promotion, having been born in 2000 in one of Brazil’s largest metropolises.

While she is still quite new to the UFC, her all-around game, which combines her excellent grappling skills with sharp striking has made her stand out from the crowd in the 600-odd UFC roster. Santos has trained and continues to train in multiple martial arts disciplines, which has given her an excellent base for MMA. In this article, we take a look at her background and martial arts journey.

What is Luana Santos’ background?

Luana Santos hails from the Brazilian party capital of Sao Paulo at the turn of the millennium. This, of course, was around the same time Dana White and Zuffa took over the UFC, which shortly led to the promotion exploding in popularity. Before her tenth birthday, the flyweight was well on her way in her martial arts journey, having started training Judo, and winning titles when she was eight. Ronda Rousey was the most famous judoka at that time and was her earliest and strongest influence.

Having started winning titles not long after starting Judo, Santos was quite smitten with the sport. But everything changed when she watched a UFC event by chance on TV at one of her friends’ houses. Already training in Judo, this brief exposure to the sport and her love for Rousey was enough for her to decide what she would do for the rest of her life. By pure chance, that same friend’s father knew an MMA coach, Helios Moyana. He introduced Santos to Moyana, and the rest, as they say, is history.

This started her off on her MMA journey, and the Brazilian has not looked back since. Santos, since her brief introduction to Moyana all those years ago, still trains at the 011 MMA gym headed by him, albeit under a different coach: Allan Begosso. Now let us take a look at the many disciplines she has practiced in.

Santos’ is proficient in grappling as well as striking martial arts

What makes Luana Santos so dangerous, as we have mentioned, is that she is a multi-discipline martial artist. Grappling is her strongest suit, which is not surprising since she not only holds a black belt in Judo but another black belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu for good measure. Which is not to say her striking is anything to be scoffed at. While not quite as accomplished in it as much as the other disciplines, Santos does have a blue belt with a blue-black stripe in Muay Thai.

Armed with an ironclad, over sixty percent accurate defense to round things off, the Brazilian is as much a menace on the feet as on the ground. And this has been true for almost all of her career. After a brief albeit undefeated stint in the amateurs, where she went undefeated, the Sao Paulo native took the leap and made her professional debut in 2021 at the age of 21.

Two years later she found herself opposite Juliana Miller in a Fight Night bout in the UFC octagon. Santos’ ceiling at the moment seems quite high, maybe even title-worthy. But as she moves up the ladder, she will face stiffer competition, which will decide the matter one way or the other. As it always does in MMA. What are your thoughts on Luana Santos’ MMA career so far?