Tayane Porfirio has just delivered one of the biggest upsets of the year at Brasileiro 2025, as she was able to dethrone Gabrieli Pessanha. Although both women are elite grapplers in their own right, Pessanha has established herself as one of the best to ever set foot on the mats over the last few years. She has won both the super-heavyweight and absolute divisions at every single major IBJJF event since the start of 2022, and an incredible tally of 8 IBJJF World Championship titles too. This has been one of the most dominant runs in the history of the sport and Pessanha has gone almost two hundred matches without a single loss.
The last time that Pessanha suffered a defeat was all the way back in 2021 and she had won already won an incredible 161 matches in a row prior to the IBJJF Brazilian National Championship this year. She then won 5 matches to start off her run at the tournament, including one of those coming against Porfirio herself in the absolute division. This was far from the first time that they had crossed paths of course, and Pessanha held a 6-1 record against her by the time she won that match in the absolute division. She had already beaten her just a little over a week ago when she defended her absolute title at BJJ Stars 15 too.
Pessanha had every reason to come into the final of her weight class with supreme confidence but Porfirio was able to put an end to her phenomenal streak. Porfirio was able to rack up four points during the course of the match and keep Pessanha from scoring at all, securing a 4-0 win and her first gold medal at Brasileiro in 7 years. It was a historic moment and Porfirio is now one of two women to have multiple wins against Pessanha, alongside this year’s Brasileiro heavyweight champion Yara Soares. It’s almost certainly not the last time that these two will meet and Pessanha does still hold one of her records, as she has still never been submitted in black belt competition.
The full IBJJF Brazilian National Championship (Brasileiro) 2025 event replay, including Tayane Porfirio defeating Gabrieli Pessanha, is available to watch on FloGrappling, click here to subscribe and watch.
