Thalyta “Thata” Silva

Thalyta Silva lost two Worlds finals to the same opponent before she got to the title. In 2022 and 2023, Andressa Cintra stopped her. In 2025, back from an injury, she won four matches in Long Beach and took the middleweight title by one advantage to none over Elisabeth Clay.

Born on August 22, 1999, in Formiga, in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais, she played almost every sport her school offered, from soccer to chess. She started capoeira at 11 and, about three years later, added taekwondo, kickboxing and Jiu-Jitsu, the last one under coach Donizete. After a few months competing in two sports, she stayed with Jiu-Jitsu.

In 2017 she joined Casa do Atleta, Paulo Rezende’s program in Poços de Caldas. It was Rezende who gave her a black belt, on April 27, 2021. On the way there she was a world runner-up at blue belt, in 2018, and took bronze at purple belt, in 2019.

At black belt, the results came right away. Thalyta won Europeans three years in a row, from 2022 to 2024, and each time was also the open class runner-up. In 2024 she added Pans and the Brazilian Nationals. In that stretch she changed teams twice: she left Qatar BJJ/Vision for Dream Art in 2022 and, in February 2023, signed a two-year contract with Fratres, in São Paulo.

At the 2025 Worlds she came in as the No. 1 seed. She submitted Deise Leonanjo from the back, beat Chloe McNally 6-0 and got past Gisele Menezes on advantages. The final against Clay ended 0-0, and the advantage that decided the title came early in the match, when both pulled guard.

After the title she defended her BJJ Stars belt against Helena Crevar, in July, and dropped to lightweight for The Crown, in November, where she lost to Cassia Moura. In December she returned to MMA, a sport in which she had fought once in 2017. She has won four times since and is now 5-0, most recently by TKO at LFA 241, in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, in September 2026.

In Jiu-Jitsu, her only appearance in 2026 was at Worlds. The No. 1 seed again, she lost in the round of 16 to Victoria Ulrich, in a 0-0 match decided by a penalty.