Gigi Canuto is finally getting her first walk to the UFC cage. She is set to make her debut against Carol Foro at UFC Fight Night on 8/8/26, a moment that turns years of grappling success and a strong run in MMA into a shot on the sport’s biggest stage.
That is why her name is moving now. Canuto is not arriving as a stranger to high-level competition. She is a black belt in Jiu Jitsu, went 7-1 as a pro under LFA, and reached the semifinals on The ultimate fighter before this UFC booking landed.
The path to this point started far from the spotlight. Canuto said she began doing MMA during covid after being in Las Vegas for Jiu Jitsu, where she was helping fighters with grappling, including Claudia Gadelha and Valentina Shevchenko. Pavel then pushed her toward a harder leap, telling her, “you should go straight into pro, you train with Valentina.”
Her progress has been built fight by fight. She said her last LFA outing against Janaína Silva was a key fight in her career, and her results before the UFC show why. She stopped Anita Karim via strikes in 0:25 of the first round in the quarterfinals, then was stopped by Melissa Amaya via strikes in the second round in the semifinals.
But the debut also carries a quieter contradiction. Canuto says she told her dad when she was little that she would be a UFC champion, yet she is only now starting her UFC career. That does not weaken the story. It is the story: a lifelong promise finally meeting the first real test of whether it can become true.
Canuto has said the moment means everything to her, and the feeling is made sharper by how long she has waited to get here. She said she has known Liam Hill since they were 14 years old, that he used to fight and now works to make her a better fighter as her videographer, and that their life together also includes Obi, her 9-year-old dog who is obsessed with ball. The next step is simple enough to name and hard enough to earn: her UFC debut against Foro will show whether the promise, the record and the grind can hold up at this level.
