Yana Santos

BIOGRAPHY

Yana Kunitskaya is a professional mixed martial artist and UFC fighter from Russia who currently competes in the women’s bantamweight division. She began her career fighting for all-female promotion Fight Nights Global before making her way to the UFC in 2018.

Kunitskaya was born on October 28, 1989 in Chelyabinsk, Russia. As a child she had an interest in karate and when she was 15 years old she began training at a local MMA gym. From there her interest grew and soon after she was competing as an amateur fighter locally around the Chelyabinsk area. After winning multiple fights as an amateur, Kunitskaya decided to turn pro and made her professional debut at Shooto:Eurasia 2013 against Alla Osipova where she won via submission due to punches early into the second round of their fight.

Kunitskaya continued making waves across Europe with wins over some of its top female fighters including Mariya Agapova, Anastasia Yankova and Olga Rubin among others. In March 2018 Kunitskaya took part in a one-night tournament held by Valkyrie Fighting called ‘Strikeforce: Queen of Kings’ where she defeated Mariya Agapova via submission due to punches once again to be crowned champion of featherweight division championship belt.. This victory earned Yana has a call from Dana White himself which led het signing with Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC).

She made her debut for UFC against Cris Cyborg on December 29th 2018 at UFC 232 but lost via TKO during first round following punches form Cyborg who successfully defended his featherweight title that night.. Following this fight Yana moved down to bantamweight division where he still competes today although she has yet been able to make any major breakthrough having suffered losses against Aspen Ladd twice (both fights ending with technical knockout) , Germaine de Randamie(split decision) Katlyn Chookagian (unanimous decision) . Current record stands 3-4(1NC). Her most recent bout took place on May 8 2021against Ketlen Vieira which ended up no contest due tot accidental eye poke late into first round by Vieira which forced doctors not allow Kuniskaya continue fight anymore .

Outside cage Yana is known for being active within Russian MMA community – often helps promotes events or talks about importance of safety measures during training sessions . Additionally uje spends lot time working with children teaching them basics of martial arts through seminars , workshops etc while also maintaining very strong presence online – wikipedia page mentions that uje has over 600k followers across various social media platforms combined