Brazilian boxer Jully “Poca” de Oliveira, 32, has joined Stake 's roster of global ambassadors as of August 18, 2026, marking the operator's first formal entry into boxing after years focused on the UFC. The agreement comes at a time of rising success for Jully's professional career, who has amassed over 6 million followers on Instagram and TikTok and had been on an undefeated streak since her boxing debut in 2023.
Born in Santo André, in the ABC region of São Paulo, on April 7, 1994, Jully began training sanda (also called Chinese boxing) at age 17, initially as a form of self-defense. “I started doing sanda as self-defense; I always wanted to learn how to defend myself,” the fighter said in an interview with the UFC Podcast, the official program of UFC Brazil, back in November 2024. According to her, the modality functions as a Chinese equivalent of MMA, combining punches, takedowns, and throws, a discipline she also taught to women in Santo André before turning professionally to boxing.
The moment that propelled Jully beyond the fitness world happened in 2019, when she intervened to protect a mother and daughter from a ride-share driver who was assaulting them on Radial Leste, in São Paulo. Jully pulled the older woman away from the scene, immobilized the aggressor with a hold, and kept him subdued, using his own shoelaces to tie his arms and legs, until the police arrived. This episode, combined with the fitness routine content she already produced on social media, helped build the follower base that, years later, would attract the attention of Stake Brasil , a brand that began to see in the athlete a rare profile of digital reach combined with competitive results in the ring.
Jully's entry into boxing began by chance, with an invitation to exhibition fights between digital influencers. She won her first bouts, dispatching former actress Elle Brooke in the semi-finals of the Kingpyn High Stakes , a British tournament held in Dublin, and won the Misfits Boxing cruiserweight title in November 2023, defeating her rival known as Vampira. She defended the title two more times throughout 2024, a period in which she also received an official invitation from UFC Brazil to discuss her career on a podcast dedicated to the sport. During this same period, she publicly suggested a fight with Ronda Rousey , a UFC idol and a key figure in the popularization of women's MMA, even though she retired from competition in 2016. "I have nothing to lose, but I'm going to fight to win," said the Brazilian, commenting on the hypothetical challenge in an interview on a podcast specializing in fighting, an episode that well illustrates the athlete's appetite for measuring her strength against established names, both within and outside of boxing itself. In January 2026, he formalized the turning point that had already been brewing and signed a contract with Most Valuable Promotions (MVP), a boxing company founded by YouTuber Jake Paul , finally abandoning the label of a simple internet phenomenon.
Stake's bet on women's boxing
Jully's arrival to Stake 's roster of ambassadors is part of a broader strategy by the operator within combat sports. The company already acts as an official betting partner of the UFC in Brazil and maintains ambassadors such as Alex "Poatan" Pereira and Alexandre Pantoja , both former champions of the organization. With Jully, Stake now has, for the first time, an official representative in boxing, a move that the company's marketing director, Akhil Sarin, described as a natural expansion of the portfolio. "We have a great roster of fighters in our ranks and we are proud to have added not only an emerging, fierce and undefeated boxer, but someone who has paved the way for influencers who want to establish themselves in fighting," said Sarin.
From the athlete's own perspective, joining Stake Brasil was described as recognition of a career built outside the traditional paths of Olympic or amateur boxing. “ Stake is a huge brand, with a very strong presence in sports, especially combat sports, so for me this partnership makes perfect sense,” said Jully. “I always wanted to work with brands that truly believed in me, in my career, and in everything we are building.”
Stake 's move also aligns with a broader trend of increasing investment in women's boxing and MMA. Just days after the announcement, Jully stepped into the ring in Temecula, California, against American Cinderella Linnear, on the undercard (a secondary card, in boxing terms referring to fights preceding the main event) of the bout between Amanda Serrano , one of the biggest names in women's boxing history, and Argentinian Lucrecia Manzur, for the featherweight titles of the World Boxing Organization (WBO) and the World Boxing Association (WBA). Jully's presence on a card of this magnitude, alongside a historical figure in the sport, illustrates how women's boxing has moved beyond being a niche market and become a product capable of sustaining live streams on platforms like TikTok, where the event was broadcast for free.
The first professional test
Jully was coming off a victorious boxing debut, with a unanimous decision win over Monica Medina in June 2026 at MVPW-04 in Orlando. This result was already a rematch, as the two had previously faced each other in an exhibition fight under the Misfits Boxing banner in November 2025, which Jully also won. The contract signed with MVP stipulates at least three fights per year, a clause that the athlete herself highlights as a priority. "My contract with MVP guarantees me at least three fights a year. This is very important to me because I want to stay active," she said.
Against Linnear, however, the undefeated streak came to an end. The American, returning after more than a year without fighting, won by split decision (39-37, 37-39 and 39-37), Jully's first defeat since her boxing debut in 2023. The result interrupts a record that totaled six wins between exhibition fights and the beginning of her professional phase, and comes just the week after the announcement of the partnership with Stake.
Linnear entered the fight with a much more modest professional boxing record, having only fought once before the bout, a unanimous decision victory over Desiree Davila in August 2025. The American, originally from Shreveport, Louisiana, and based in Arlington, Texas, also had been inactive for over a year, a factor that reduced the available material for any prior style analysis and helped explain the unpredictability of the outcome. Jully, on the other hand, entered the ring projecting confidence in her technical evolution since her professional debut, at a time when she also publicly revealed Amanda Serrano as her dream opponent and Tokyo as the city where she would most like to fight at least once in her career.
The technical foundation that Jully credits as a key differentiator comes precisely from sanda, a martial art she has also tried to popularize in interviews and her own content. “Sanda gave me a very important base as a fighter, especially in terms of movement, distance control, explosiveness, reflexes, and adaptability during a fight,” she explained, comparing the Chinese martial art to a kind of local MMA that combines punches, throws, and takedowns within the same combat. Even after almost entirely shifting her training to pure boxing, the athlete acknowledges that her previous background continues to shape her style in the ring, particularly in footwork and distance judgment against taller opponents.
Jully Poca's boxing record
Part of the appeal of the content that Jully builds around her own career comes precisely from the behind-the-scenes preparation, a topic she addresses with humor even in uncomfortable situations. In an account of cutting weight for one of her previous fights, the athlete described the process in a very different way from what usually happens in MMA. “In boxing, we try to cut as little as possible because we use our legs a lot. We can't get too tired because we use our legs a lot, and there are more rounds too,” she explained, contrasting the boxing routine with the more aggressive cuts common in other combat sports.
Jully's relationship with her own body during preparation also appears as recurring content on her social media, which helps explain part of the commercial appeal that sparked Stake 's interest . According to the athlete herself, she has faced episodes of fluid retention related to her menstrual cycle on the eve of weigh-ins, forcing her to lose up to 4 kg extra in a few hours before a fight, a routine she describes as becoming increasingly predictable as she gains experience in the sport.
Maintaining a balance between her two roles—professional athlete and content creator—has become a challenge in her daily routine. “I love creating content and I have a huge community that follows me every day. So I try to organize my routine in a way that allows me to do both,” said Jully, commenting on how she balances her training schedule with her life as an influencer. “Sometimes I finish a workout completely exhausted and still need to record, post content, or work on a campaign, but it's part of it. And I also think it's really cool to be able to show so many people what the routine of a professional athlete is really like.” This statement perfectly summarizes the hybrid model that sustains her career today, where audience engagement and athletic performance go hand in hand.
Stake's combat portfolio
In addition to Jully, Stake maintains a significant showcase of names linked to combat sports in Brazil and abroad. The company is an official betting partner of the UFC in the country, which already guaranteed high visibility even before the arrival of the São Paulo-born boxer to the ambassador roster. Outside the world of fighting, the brand also maintains major international contracts, such as with Canadian singer Drake and Everton of the English Premier League, which places the agreement with Jully within a brand strategy that deliberately mixes sports, entertainment, and pop culture, not just traditional sponsorship of high-performance athletes.
Jully also envisions other career milestones, including a fight with Amanda Serrano, a figure she cites as a direct inspiration, and the possibility of fighting in Tokyo, a city with which she has a declared connection. The minimum schedule of three fights per year stipulated in her contract with MVP ensures that new opportunities to reverse the Temecula result will arise quickly, which also maintains commercial interest in the partnership with Stake , still in its initial phase.
Jully's trajectory also coincides with a maturation of women's boxing itself as a mass entertainment product. Cards that bring together names with strong digital appeal alongside established champions, such as Amanda Serrano, have ceased to be the exception and have become a recurring promotional format, especially within MVP, a company founded specifically with the aim of giving female fighters the same prominence as men in major posters. The presence of sponsors like Stake in this ecosystem, attracted both by the athletes' sporting performance and audience reach, reinforces the perception that women's boxing has ceased to depend exclusively on results in the ring to sustain long-term commercial interest.
For Brazilian women's boxing, this episode already demonstrates how the sports betting market has come to see athletes with a strong digital presence as a marketing asset as valuable as their sporting history itself. Jully's case, in fact, illustrates this logic well: her follower base, the repercussion of the self-defense incident in 2019, and her appeal to the Brazilian public continue to sustain the brand's interest, regardless of specific results in the ring, proving that the commercial value of an athlete-influencer today is measured by much broader layers than just a record of wins and losses.
Johnny Walker opens up about his heavyweight debut at UFC 332.
Comments