Mayra Bueno Silva joined The Fighting Nerds ahead of her UFC Saudi Arabia clash with Jasmine Jasudavicius on Feb. 1 but that decision isn’t related to training or her MMA career.
“Sheetara”, who trained at American Top Team in Florida prior to the move, told MMA Fighting that returning to Sao Paulo, the home state of her wife Gloria de Paula, was to start grow the family. Together since August of 2016, Silva and de Paula are now planning to have a baby.
“We’re going to be moms,” Silva said, “so we’ll start the in vitro fertilization process and be close to family, close to home and out moms, because it’s a hard process for Gloria while I’m in camp. I want her to be as comfortable as possible and surrounded by love. That’s why we’re back. I love American Top Team, I love my little man ‘Parrumpa’. We had no issues, nothing like that. We only came back because we decided to become mothers.”
Silva competed for the UFC bantamweight belt in January 2024 and now returns to flyweight looking for more challenges. De Paula, on the other hand, went 0-2 since parting ways with the UFC in June 2022. “Sheetara” also wants to get pregnant one day, she said, but it’s “Glorinha’s” turn now.
“We started the IVF process now,” Silva said. “Gloria will get pregnant now, and in the future it’s my turn. I really want to get pregnant. My dream as a child was to get married and become a mom. I want to get pregnant in the future, yes.
“I dream of being a mother, too, and the end of the career comes faster for women,” she continued. “I believe I have what, five years left in my career? If you think about it, it’s not a lot. Men last longer. So I want to enjoy every little moment, every fight. We fight two, three times a year, and that’s not much for all the hard work we put in. I want to enjoy every process because it all ends so fast, and one day I’ll be telling my kids what I used to do.”
The 33-year-old fighter is cutting back to flyweight more than three years after leaving the division looking for “motivation” and “fun” after coming up short in a title fight at bantamweight.
“It’s the fun of starting something new in a quest for a belt, something that lights up a fire in me again.” Silva said. “Can I do it? Can I go after another belt? It’s hard, but it lights up a cool fire in me, it keeps me alive.”
Cutting the extra 10 pounds isn’t easy, though, and “Sheetara” has to make sacrifices in order to get down to 125 pounds on Friday morning. Yet, Silva said that being “extremely hyperactive” helps her deal with hard tasks. Her last flyweight bout was a decision loss to Manon Fiorot in Las Vegas — and she absolutely hates looking back at that fight week.
“The weight cut for Fiorot is something I don’t even like remembering because she had COVID at that time [and postponed the fight] and I had to cut weight twice,” Silva said. “It was very sad to me, you know? That’s when I had concussion because of the dehydration. It was a horrible fight, the worst fight of my life. That was a very painful process in my life.
“I’m healthy now, I’m fine, I’m cutting down in weight and it’s good. Is it hard? Yeah, sometimes you go to a party and can’t eat. You can’t go to the movies, you have restrictions at home. Sometimes Gloria wants to eat something and I can’t, but I’m trying to enjoy the process because I don’t have much time left doing this.”
Jasudavicius, winner of her past three with two $50,000 performance bonuses cashed, welcomes Silva back to the flyweight division looking to enter the top 10 of the UFC’s 125-pound weight class. Silva knows her well, and sees holes in her game.
“We have similar styles, she’s a grappling finisher and so am I,” Silva said. “I love Jasmine. We’ve trained together at American Top Team and she’s sensational, has super high-level grappling and I have to be careful or she can complicate things for me. But she’s good at something I’m excellent at, which is finishing fights. The match-up is bad for her, I think. We see many holes in her game, but she’s a very tough girl.”
