The ongoing legal battle between former UFC title challenger Taila Santos and her former coach and manager, Marcelo Brigadeiro, has taken a dramatic turn. The case began in 2022, when Brigadeiro sued Santos, claiming she failed to pay him R$300,000 according to their contract from her UFC fight purses. While the case initially seemed to go against the PFL star, the recent developments have raised serious questions about the manager himself.

The Brazilian once dominated Dana White & Co.’s promotion, even challenging flyweight champion Valentina Shevchenko in 2022. After her last fight in 2023, Taila Santos left the promotion, calling her contract “abusive and illegal.” Interestingly, she had already filed a legal dispute against Brigadeiro in 2021, demanding $4,820 from her former manager. With both sides now actively pursuing claims, the lawsuit has become even more complex, especially after the latest viral chat between Marcelo Brigadeiro and UFC brass Mick Maynard.

Viral messages with UFC officials backfire on Taila Santos’s former manager

Renowned MMA journalist John S. Nash, in his latest podcast episode, Hey, Not the Face, dissected a 40-page WhatsApp exchange from 2019 between Taila Santos’s former manager Marcelo Brigadeiro and UFC matchmaker Mick Maynard, recently revealed to a Brazilian court. The messages show Brigadeiro made no effort to secure a deal, leaving the Brazilian star with almost no leverage. The viral screenshots submitted in court include:

“Mick Maynard: Ariane Carnelossi will take fight vs Thalia
Marcelo Brigadeiro: Ok
Mick Maynard: Good to go?
Mick Maynard: That should be fun I think
Marcelo Brigadeiro: You know I don’t turn fights down
Marcelo Brigadeiro: Let’s go
Mick Maynard: Awesome thank you
Marcelo Brigadeiro: But you buy me a drink this time!
Mick Maynard: Deal
Marcelo Brigadeiro: Mick”

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The viral chat also shows a screenshot of Marcelo Brigadeiro talking with Mick Maynard about UFC flyweight star Su Mudaerji, in which Brigadeiro made little effort to secure the deal, seemingly under pressure from Dana White & Co. He wrote, “Let me speak to him… but I am happy with that,” when Maynard offered a new contract deal for Su Mudaerji.

These chats have already sparked outrage among fans, who criticize the UFC amid its ongoing antitrust lawsuit. The latest Brazilian court contract disputes have only fueled the backlash, with MMA managers facing heavy criticism. Marcelo Brigadeiro and Taila Santos have been together since Santos’s second professional fight.

In Marcelo Brigadeiro’s case against Taila Santos, another plaintiff is also part of the lawsuit, including a coach and Santos’s brother-in-law.

Marcelo Brigadeiro responds to Taila’s lawsuit allegations

The lawsuit centers on Taila Santos’s fights against Roxanne Modafferi, Joanne Wood, and Valentina Shevchenko. Marcio Malko, who worked on Santos’s team and spoke out in 2022, claimed she failed to pay him 20% of his share from the Shevchenko fight, totaling $36,400. Santos’s brother-in-law, a jiu-jitsu brown belt coach and brother of her husband Patricio Barbosa Farias, also claimed she left him in debt after failing to pay $2,935 from his debut.

Since Patricio Barbosa Farias could not cover the lawyer’s fees, the BJJ coach filed a police complaint in 2022 for embezzlement against him and Taila Santos. Last month, Marcelo Brigadeiro went live to address the case. He revealed that the court ruled in his favor, but his lawyer is pushing to increase the amount. There is still no update on whether the case has concluded or remains pending.

“I talked to her, explained that it wasn’t like that, that I had managed her entire career, that there was a valid contract, and she simply ignored the contract. Result: I took it to court. My lawyer presented a huge amount of evidence. And I had emails, messages, negotiations from 2014, 2015, with XFC, Invicta, UFC, showing all the negotiations to get her into the events, negotiate purses, opponents… Result: the court ruled in my favor. Marcelo Brigadeiro,” said Marcelo Brigadeiro in the interview.

However, Marcelo Brigadeiro is not satisfied with the court’s award and plans to file an appeal in the “second instance” to recover the full R$600,000 stated in the termination clause. In the same interview, he also claimed that Taila Santos treated another coach similarly, leaving Marcio Malco with a debt of R$1 million.

“If we win on appeal, which I believe we will, because legally there’s nothing to discuss, she’ll owe something around R$1 million in total…. I need this, me and the other coach. And when she left the team and went to another, the coach acted correctly… I thanked him, congratulated him on his stance. We even created a partnership after that,” Marcelo Brigadeiro added.

The ongoing lawsuit exposes growing tensions between fighters and their managers. Taila Santos denies all allegations, claiming the coach misled her and that she signed the contract without fully understanding its clauses and legal implications. She also rejects her brother-in-law’s claims, calling them “false accusations.”

So far, neither Taila Santos nor Marcelo Brigadeiro has responded to the latest viral message screenshots. Stay tuned for updates.