Larissa Pacheco is thisclose to becoming the first two-division PFL champion after less than 15 seconds of fight time.
The 28-year-old Brazilian mixed martial artist didn’t break a sweat against Olena Kolesnyk (9-6), knocking her out in just 14 seconds in a women’s featherweight playoff semifinal Friday in New York.
After blasting Kolesnyk with a straight right hand during the first exchange of the fight, Pacheco collapsed her against the cage with another hard right, then finished her with a third big right hand as the referee swiftly jumped in.
It was Pacheco’s ninth straight victory since losing the 2019 lightweight final to two-season champ Kayla Harrison. Seven of those wins have come via first-round knockout, including all three of her meetings with Kolesnyk. Another of those wins was Pacheco’s upset of Harrison in last November’s 155-pound final.
“I was super confident because I work a lot, I put a lot of effort into this,” Pacheco, who was a 21-1 betting favorite, said afterward through an interpreter. “I’m not the type of queen that just sits around and waits for people to come out and bus my table. I go out there and I go to work.”
It was the second straight fight that Pacheco has ended by knockout in the first minute — which she cited as an impediment to showing off her development. “I feel like if the fights lasted a little longer, I would be able to show more evolution,” she said. “I can’t really help it that once my hands land, they just fall.”
The top-seeded Pacheco will go for a second straight season championship on November 24 against No. 2 seed Marina Mokhnatkina (11-3), who also scored a quick finish to earn her spot in the final. Mokhnatkina, a six-time world sambo world champion from Russia, took Amber Leibrock (7-6) to the canvas seconds into their fight and immediately worked her way to an armbar, eliciting the tapout at 1:45 of Round 1. Mokhnatkina is 5-1 in the PFL, with her only loss coming at lightweight last year against Harrison.
