Former ring girl surprised with scorecards in UFC debut

Chaves made her promotional debut against Yuneisy
Duben at
UFC Fight Night 278 on Saturday. “A Braba” earned a hard-fought
split decision win over Duben at the Apex in Las Vegas. However,
the flyweight was surprised by the split nature of the verdict.
While Duben managed to win the third round on all the scorecards,
judge Tony Weeks also gave her the first round. While Chaves admits
that Duben deserved Round 3, she was confident that she did enough
to win the first two. Chaves said in a post-fight interview:

“Very happy with a win in my debut. It was a split decision. I
gotta confess, I was really surprised. I was like, ‘Oh my God.
We’re gonna have some emotion. Why not? It makes it more fun.’
Thankfully, the win came… I was confident. My corners came to me
and said, ‘You won 2-1.’ I felt that we had done enough to
win.”

Chaves (8-0) got introduced to combat sports when a friend proposed
a gig as a ring girl in a muay thai event. Chaves soon started
training with the promoter of the event, who is still her head
coach. A year later, Chaves competed for the first time in muay
thai. The undefeated Brazilian started training jiu-jitsu soon
after, where she then transitioned to MMA. Chaves earned a contract
with a gritty split decision win on the Dana White’s Contender Series last year.
Meanwhile, Venezuela’s Duben (6-2) had finished all six of her wins
when she came to the UFC as an undefeated athlete in 2024. However,
she has since dropped both her UFC outings.