Kunitskaya was born in Murmansk in the family of a gymnast and a skier. The statistics of 64-year-old Iosif Kunitsky on ski marathons could be found up to 2012. At that time, the athlete’s daughter had been participating in MMA for three years. Kunitskaya made her combat debut in 2009, left for four years in 2012, and after her return she really rebooted her career. She moved to the United States, established herself in the room in Florida and began to fight with high-profile opponents. In March 2018, Kunitskaya could even overtake Khabib and become Russia’s first UFC champion. True, it was necessary to fight with the dominant and almost invincible Cris Justino, and Yana lost in the first round.
In 2019 it became known that the girl was in a relationship with UFC champion Thiago Santos. In 2022, the couple had a daughter, Alice. And now Yana returns to the UFC and will fight a very tough athlete. Holly Holm was a professional boxing world champion and became the first person to defeat Ronda Rousey to win the UFC championship belt.
– In November 2015, Holly Holm defeated Ronda Rousey, becoming a co-writer of one of the major fights in women’s MMA history. And in March 2016, you lost to Zaire Dyshekova at a tournament in Moscow, in the first fight after a four-year break. If you were told then that you would fight Holly, would you believe it?
– I had no idea that some fights were impossible, because there aren’t many girls involved, so I wouldn’t be surprised for sure. I’m telling you seriously.
– Were you very upset to lose after a four-year break?
– Yes, it was very disappointing, especially since I had had a long winning streak before that. But the reason was poor preparation, we barely fought … All this gave impetus to the understanding that I had to change my training, train more in wrestling, so the defeat brought me a lot in terms of growth.
– You played in the most popular UFC 229 tournament, where Conor McGregor and Khabib Nurmagomedov fought. Have you met any of them?
– I had a locker room with Khabib. I was very surprised at how relaxed and confident he was. Usually everyone is worried, and he played with Daniel Cormier’s children. He argued, and he fought with them, having fun. Merry was. It was as if his whole team was worried and he had a lot of confidence in him. It was like coming to practice.
– Did you try the same?
“People are all different, everyone likes a different vibe. I don’t think such a style would suit me, it’s specific. It’s better for me not to be distracted, I like to sit alone, to think, and there was a team of 50 people around him.
Who did you train with for Holly Holm?
“I had a very good sparring partner who imitated him perfectly. Looks like Holly Holm and I fought every practice session. He’s a professional fighter, but he doesn’t compete in the UFC, his name is Josh, and he also represents our gym.
Who will be in your corner?
– My husband (Thiago Santos) and gym head trainer Conan Silveiro, he already groomed Amanda Nunez for the fight with Holly Holm.
– You give an interview with your daughter in your arms. Who will she stay with on fight day if your husband is around.
– My friend Tatyana Klimenko came to me, she is going to sit with her. We will not take our daughter to the locker room. The daughter and son will stay at the hotel.
At what month of pregnancy did you stop training?
– I trained and went to give birth. On Friday, I was still engaged and I gave birth on Monday. I didn’t take a break. I came back a little earlier than the doctor had allowed. I started doing warm-ups, calisthenics and three weeks later I started training in light boxing and sparring. And two months later, I trained hard.
– In general, does childbirth affect a professional athlete?
– In my case, it only benefited. My hormonal history has improved and my metabolism has improved. The weigh-in went well. Maybe in some ways she got more emotional, but that didn’t affect training.
There is also the concept of postpartum depression. It didn’t affect you?
– I didn’t have that. Although I heard that many girls had experienced it. Even now, Alice is screaming, but that doesn’t distract me. It seems to me, on the contrary, that there has been a burst of strength. Yes, sometimes I couldn’t fall asleep at night, but I woke up in the morning and went to training full of energy anyway.
– Alexander Volkov said that when his newborn baby wakes up at night and cries, he can fall asleep in another room, and his wife puts his son to bed. Because both understood that getting enough sleep is part of the athlete’s training process. And what does that look like to you, assuming Thiago Santos is also a professional fighter?
Thiago sleeps all night, doesn’t wake up at all. And Alice can only be soothed by breast milk. So here my husband can’t help me anyway.
“Have you been to Russia and Brazil?”
– We came to Russia for a month and stayed in Brazil for six months. After that, they didn’t go there or there. In Russia – due to the political situation, but we are planning to go to Brazil, but so far the battle schedule does not allow it.
– You apparently have the possibility to choose the nationality of your daughter among three: Russia, the United States and Brazil. How are you going to choose?
– Yes, Alice has the opportunity to obtain three nationalities, but so far they have only been able to obtain American nationality. There are some problems with the documents, and we can’t do Russian or Brazilian.
– You said that you do not exclude that you receive an American passport.
– Because I live here (in Florida), and, of course, it would be easier to get a US passport. We received a green card very easily, and now we have to wait for the required period to pass and we can apply for citizenship. There is quite a long waiting time. I have a green card for a year, I have to wait another two and a half years, and you can apply. I think the whole thing will take about five years. It’s just that Thiago and I are planning to live in the United States, he’s not planning to go back to Brazil, we love everything here.
– Your surname on the Sherdog.com statistical resource has changed, respectively, from Kunitskaya to Santos. How it’s made?
– But I don’t know myself, and it’s news to me that they changed their surname there. I just contacted the UFC, notified I had a new last name, sent them a marriage certificate. Because here, according to state laws, the surname automatically changes. I don’t know how it happened to Sherdog. Maybe the UFC contacted them.
– Will the octagon announcer announce you as Yana Santos?
– Yes.
– You said that Fedor Emelianenko chose a tough fight with Ryan Bader, although he had to “calculate his strength”, but you also had a fight with Chris Justino, where you had little chance. What is the difference?
The difference is that I had no choice. I don’t know if Fedor had a choice, but I still think he did, and I had options, either fight in the UFC, or fight this fight on good terms, or nothing at all .
Source : MatchTV
I am Ashley Ortiz and I am a professional journalist working for Athletistic. My specialty is in sports journalism, particularly boxing. I have written articles for some of the most renowned publications on the subject, and my work has been featured across both print and digital media platforms.
