Mayra Bueno Silva Fighting for UFC Championship

Mayra Bueno Silva will finally hear cheers — or boos — from a crowd again for the first time since 2018.

“Sheetara” made her octagon debut in her native Sao Paulo, Brazil, scoring a first-round armbar victory over Gillian Robertson in November 2018. It took a while for her to recover from a bad knee injury suffered that night, and once she returned, Silva was part of the UFC Brasilia card in March 2020 that was almost shut down due to the COVID-19 pandemic, leaving an empty arena for the first time due to the health crisis.

Since then, Silva has entered the octagon seven times, with all of those fights taking place inside the UFC APEX in Las Vegas, a place built to host events in the pandemic with only a few people in attendance. Now, as Silva prepares to face Raquel Pennington for the vacant bantamweight title at UFC 297 on Jan. 20 in Toronto, she celebrates competing in front of a larger crowd.