There is a wonderfully simple rule to this particular crossover fight.
The more rules we remove, the happier Larissa Pacheco becomes.
Sandy Ryan is one of Britain’s elite boxers, a two-weight world champion whose entire fighting education has been built around solving the extremely complicated problem of hitting somebody while avoiding being hit back.
Pacheco has spent considerably more time worrying about what happens when somebody decides punching is insufficient.
She can kick you. She can knee you. She can wrestle you. She can submit you. She can apparently also elbow you into oblivion, which became relevant again in 2026.
So what happens if we put them together?
For clarity, absolutely nothing discussed below is actually happening. This is an entirely hypothetical crossover fight between two exceptional combat-sports specialists, and given Sandy Ryan’s pregnancy, we are obviously imagining healthy, competition-ready versions of both women.
But we are not stopping at boxing versus MMA.
We are going backwards.
Boxing. Four-ounce-glove striking. MMA. Bare knuckle. London Prize Ring Rules. Finally, Broughton’s Rules from 1743.
Essentially, we are putting Sandy Ryan and Larissa Pacheco into a combat-sports time machine and seeing at precisely which historical stop everything starts going horribly wrong.
Sandy Ryan: 9–3–1 And Already a Two-Weight World Champion
What is Sandy Ryan’s boxing record?
As of September 2026, Ryan is 9–3–1 as a professional boxer.
That record requires context because Ryan has packed an extraordinary amount into only 13 professional fights.
She became WBO welterweight champion in 2023 and later fought undisputed champion Jessica McCaskill to a draw. Her rivalry with Mikaela Mayer produced two extremely high-level fights, both going against Ryan on the scorecards, before she rebuilt with victories over Jade Grierson and Karla Ramos Zamora.
Then came February 2026.
Ryan defeated Zamora by majority decision in Nottingham to win the vacant WBC super-lightweight championship, becoming a two-weight world champion. She also believed she broke her right hand in the third round and subsequently had to negotiate seven rounds of a difficult, high-output fight without being able to operate exactly as intended.
That tells you something useful about Ryan beyond belts and records.
She can solve problems.
Ryan is an orthodox boxer with excellent combination punching, a strong jab and the ability to counter while opponents are working. At around 5ft 8½in with a 67½-inch reach, she is also accustomed to controlling boxing distance against world-class opposition.
And this distinction matters enormously for our hypothetical.
Ryan isn’t simply “better at punching” than Pacheco.
She has spent thousands upon thousands of hours learning the tiny interactions that exist exclusively within boxing: positioning her lead foot, manipulating an opponent’s guard, disguising the second and third punch behind the first, reading shoulder movement and deciding whether to pivot, counter or remain in the pocket.
Put Pacheco into a boxing ring and Ryan is asking questions in her native language.
However, Ryan is currently away from competition for a considerably happier reason.
After announcing her pregnancy, the WBC placed her into Champion in Recess status, protecting her rights should she decide to return.
So our Sandy Ryan is necessarily hypothetical.
Pregnancy is not a fighting variable here. We are imagining the competitive Ryan who walked into Nottingham and became a two-weight champion.
Larissa Pacheco: The Woman Who Beat Kayla Harrison
Larissa Pacheco’s MMA record is 23–5.
Seventeen of those victories have come by stoppage: nine knockouts and eight submissions.
That alone should immediately destroy the idea that Ryan merely has to deal with a slightly less polished boxer.
Pacheco won the 2022 PFL lightweight championship by doing something nobody else in professional MMA has managed: beating Kayla Harrison.
Harrison had already defeated Pacheco twice.
Their third fight became Pacheco’s masterpiece.
Rather than allowing the two-time Olympic judo champion to impose the same physical and grappling dominance again, Pacheco survived difficult positions, made Harrison work and increasingly punished her as the fight progressed. She won 48–47 on all three scorecards.
Then she moved divisions.
Pacheco won the 2023 PFL women’s featherweight championship too, making her a champion across two PFL weight classes.
Her ten-fight winning streak finally ended against Cris Cyborg in October 2024, when Cyborg defeated her by unanimous decision over five rounds.
And then Pacheco disappeared from MMA.
Sort of.
After leaving the PFL, she resurfaced in Karate Combat in May 2026 at 135 pounds, an especially interesting development because she had not competed that light since her UFC days.
Julia Stasiuk lasted 106 seconds.
Pacheco hurt her with punches before eventually smashing an elbow over the top and finishing the fight against the wall.
So while she hasn’t fought MMA since 2024, Pacheco isn’t emerging from cryogenic storage for our experiment. We have recent evidence that the power, aggression and ability to operate under an unusual striking ruleset are still there.
That last part is particularly relevant.
We’re about to give her several unusual rulesets.
Things are about to get weird.
Boxing: Welcome to Sandy Ryan’s Laboratory
This is where Sandy Ryan should win.
Not because Pacheco cannot punch. She absolutely can.
Pacheco possesses legitimate knockout power, a useful jab, a dangerous right hand and combinations considerably more sophisticated than the stereotypical MMA fighter swinging overhands at a boxer.
But Ryan processes punching exchanges at another level.
Pacheco’s wider MMA stance becomes less useful when nobody can kick her legs or shoot underneath Ryan’s combinations. Ryan can establish her jab, attack behind it and pivot away before Pacheco can turn exchanges into physical collisions.
Most importantly, Ryan can commit to her boxing.
There is no takedown underneath the right hand. No kick attacking the lead leg. No knee waiting when she slips low.
Pacheco’s route is disruption.
Don’t try to outbox Ryan. Crowd her, make exchanges ugly, hit arms and shoulders, force clinches and throw that right hand whenever Ryan settles.
Pacheco only needs Ryan to make one serious mistake.
Unfortunately, Ryan gets hundreds of tiny boxing decisions correct every round.
Over ten rounds, those decisions accumulate.
Pacheco remains dangerous enough that I’d never call this 100–0, particularly given her physicality and power.
But this is Sandy’s house.
Prediction: Sandy Ryan via unanimous decision.
Ryan 88% / Pacheco 12%.
Four-Ounce Crossover Striking: Somebody Has Removed the Safety Rails
Now things become fascinating.
No takedowns. No submissions.
But we’re using four-ounce gloves and allowing kicks, knees and elbows.
Ryan remains comfortably the better puncher.
The problem is that punching is no longer the entire conversation.
Pacheco can begin attacking Ryan’s lead leg. Ryan’s beautifully functional boxing stance suddenly has an invoice attached to it every time she plants her weight.
And “just check the kicks” is one of those wonderfully easy things to say while sitting on a sofa.
Checking kicks requires recognition, balance and repetition. Ryan would be learning a defensive language Pacheco has spoken professionally for years.
Small gloves create another problem.
Ryan’s defence isn’t exclusively dependent on gloves, but the geometry changes. Shots travel through and around guards differently. Pacheco’s right hand becomes more frightening. Clinching no longer necessarily earns Ryan a referee reset either.
Yet Pacheco cannot become careless.
Throw a lazy naked kick against a boxer of Ryan’s quality and Sandy can launch a straight right down the middle before the kicking leg has returned home.
That is why I don’t think this is immediate destruction.
Early on, Ryan could look spectacular.
Then Pacheco starts taxing the legs.
Then come the knees.
Then the elbow Ryan has never needed to worry about in a professional boxing match.
The longer it lasts, the more Pacheco’s vocabulary overwhelms Ryan’s superior command of one particular language.
Prediction: Larissa Pacheco via late TKO.
Pacheco 70% / Ryan 30%.
MMA: And Now the Floor Is Lava
Here is where the experiment stops being remotely fair.
Pacheco is a two-division PFL champion with eight submission victories.
Ryan is a boxer.
That does not mean Ryan suddenly forgets how to punch.
Quite the opposite. If Pacheco strolls forward with her chin in the air and attempts a lazy takedown from several feet away, Ryan possesses exactly the kind of straight punching necessary to make that a catastrophically stupid decision.
But Pacheco doesn’t even need to take Ryan down immediately.
The possibility of the takedown has already changed Ryan’s boxing.
Her stance must change.
Her weight distribution must change.
Her reactions to pressure must change.
Ducking becomes dangerous because knees exist. Extended combinations create takedown opportunities. Clinching an opponent to stop punches suddenly places Ryan in precisely the position Pacheco wants.
One underhook changes everything.
From there Pacheco can body lock, trip or throw Ryan before moving through positions Ryan has never had to defend professionally.
And 4oz gloves make surviving underneath an experienced MMA fighter exceptionally unpleasant.
Ryan’s chance is the oldest puncher’s chance imaginable: intercept Pacheco entering and hurt her before grappling begins.
Possible?
Yes.
Probable?
Absolutely not.
Prediction: Larissa Pacheco via first-round submission.
Pacheco 98% / Ryan 2%.
Bare Knuckle: Now This Is Interesting
Modern bare-knuckle boxing pulls the pendulum back towards Ryan.
No kicks.
No takedowns.
No submissions.
Excellent news.
Except somebody has stolen Sandy’s gloves.
Bare-knuckle fighting changes defensive incentives. A conventional shell cannot be treated exactly as it would be with boxing gloves, and punching skull with unprotected hands carries its own consequences.
Ryan nevertheless retains the most valuable commodity in the fight: dramatically superior pure boxing.
Her accuracy could be devastating here.
Pacheco’s face is not suddenly harder to hit because the gloves disappeared.
But the clinch makes this genuinely intriguing.
Modern bare-knuckle rules permit much more fighting from close range than conventional boxing. Pacheco’s physical strength and experience controlling bodies become transferable skills rather than illegal ones.
Ryan wants open space, straight punches and combinations.
Pacheco wants collision.
Get hold of Ryan, control an arm, pull her posture around and fire short punches through whatever openings appear.
Pacheco also possesses the kind of power that becomes profoundly unpleasant without ten ounces of padding attached to it.
I still favour Ryan because bare-knuckle remains fundamentally a punching contest.
But we’ve travelled a long way from 88–12.
Prediction: Sandy Ryan via decision in a brutal fight.
Ryan 60% / Pacheco 40%.
London Prize Ring Rules: Larissa Pacheco Discovers Victorian MMA
And now we’ve gone back to 1838.
Things have become ridiculous.
Under London Prize Ring Rules, rounds don’t last three minutes.
A round ends when somebody goes down.
That can happen because they’re punched down.
It can also happen because they’re thrown down.
Wrestling is legal.
Suddenly Larissa Pacheco has entered what is ostensibly a boxing match and discovered that some Victorian gentleman has accidentally legalised half her MMA game.
This is horrible for Ryan.
She could still pepper Pacheco with faster, cleaner punches at distance, particularly because Pacheco has never fought somebody with Ryan’s boxing sophistication under anything resembling these conditions.
But eventually they collide.
Ryan’s modern boxing instinct is to tie up and await separation.
There is no friendly referee arriving to untangle everything.
Pacheco gets underhooks.
Now Ryan is wrestling a woman who spent years preparing to fight Kayla Harrison.
Pacheco can repeatedly throw Ryan to end rounds, forcing her to recover and return to scratch.
That has another consequence.
Ryan cannot establish rhythm.
Jab, right hand, hook…
CLUNK.
She’s on the floor.
Thirty seconds.
Back to scratch.
Repeat.
The better boxer remains Ryan.
The better London Prize Ring fighter is almost certainly Pacheco.
Prediction: Larissa Pacheco wins after repeated throws, accumulated damage and eventual inability to return to scratch.
Pacheco 85% / Ryan 15%.
So Where Does Sandy Ryan vs Larissa Pacheco Actually Flip?
That’s what makes this fantasy matchup interesting.
It isn’t really asking whether boxing or MMA is “better.”
That’s a boring question.
Instead, we’re gradually changing the laws of combat and watching different abilities gain and lose value.
Under Queensberry boxing rules, Sandy Ryan’s specialisation is overwhelming.
She controls distance better. Her combinations are better. Her punching defence is better. Her ability to make microscopic adjustments during punching exchanges is better.
Then we add kicks.
Pacheco takes over.
Allow takedowns and the gap becomes enormous.
Remove kicks and takedowns but remove the gloves too, and Ryan comes roaring back into the contest.
Then travel backwards far enough that “boxing” permits wrestling and Pacheco becomes the favourite again.
That’s the beautiful absurdity of it.
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