Strawweight MMA fighter Polyana Viana, who made her debut in the UFC last February, was recently assaulted outside her apartment complex. A man attacked her last Saturday night as she was waiting for an Uber in Jacarepagua, a neighbourhood in the West Zone of Rio de Janeiro, in an attempt to steal her phone.
Things did not go his way.
Not only did Viana defend herself, but managed to get the man into a rear naked choke, and hold him still until the authorities arrived. Speaking to MMA Junkie, she explained how he had approached her without her noticing."When he saw I saw him, he sat next to me," she said. "He asked me the time, I said it, and I saw he wasn't going to leave."
"So I already moved to put my cell phone in my waist. And then he said, 'Give me the phone. Don't try to react, because I'm armed.' Then he put his hand over [a gun], but I realised it was too soft.
"He was really close to me. So I thought, 'If it's a gun, he won't have time to draw it.' So I stood up. I threw two punches and a kick.
"He fell, then I caught him in a rear naked choke. Then I sat him down in the same place we were before and said, 'Now we'll wait for the police.'"
She was alone at the time, but soon found help from passers-by, who called the police for her while she subdued him. She kept his arm immobilised in a 'kimura-like position', according to MMA Junkie, until they arrived. Afterwards, she discovered that the gun was actually a cutout in the shape of a handgun made out of cardboard.
According to Viana, the police took the man to an emergency care facility to address his wounds and then to the station, where she filed a police report. Once there, she learned that he had been arrested previously, and had only just been released from prison. She had assumed that she would be safe in the area considering she was right in front of her building, which has doormen, but that wasn't the case.
“I was fine. I was fine because he didn’t even react after. Since he took the punches very quickly, I think he was scared. So he didn’t react anymore. He told me to let him go, like ‘I just asked for the time.’ I said, ‘Asked for the time my ass,’ because he saw I was very angry. I said I wouldn’t let go and that I was going to call the police.
“He said, ‘Call the police, then’ because he was scared I was going to beat him up more.”
Once he heard about the news, UFC President Dana White shared a photo of Viana alongside a picture of the man who had assaulted her, badly beaten. As he says, it was definitely a "#badf******idea" on his part.
Fair warning - he's not in great shape:
After she filed the report at the police station, Viana simply went home and made her dinner. The following day, she said her hands ached a little, but otherwise she was completely unharmed.
