Female UFC Fighter Foils Robbery Attempt In Rio

UFC women’s strawweight Polyana Viana was recently involved in a robbery attempt in her native Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

The attempt did not go so well for the alleged thief. Viana was waiting for an Uber driver at her apartment in the Jacarepagua neighborhood in the West Zone of Rio de Janeiro last night. A man snuck up on her and attempted to steal her phone.

That’s when she used her fighting skills to thwart the attempt. Viana told MMAjunkie when the man claimed he was armed, she didn’t buy his story. She dropped him with a combo of strikes before putting him in a rear-naked choke to wait for police:

“When he saw I saw him, he sat next to me,” Viana 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 realized 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 provided a photo of the beat-up mugger:

Fake Gun

The “gun” the man possessed wasn’t a gun at all, with Viana claiming it was a cutout of a gun constructed out of cardboard. She knew it wasn’t real before he tried to rob her, thinking it was a toy gun or knife. Check it out:

She was by herself when she stopped the robbery, but asked nearby people to call the police for her. She kept the man’s arm in a hammerlock position before police arrived. The man had been arrested before and was recently released from jail.

He was restrained until being taken to an emergency care facility for his injuries and then the police station. Viana then filed a report on the incident with police. Here’s another photo she provided of her would-be robber being restrained:

Uninjured

Viana knew that the area was dangerous, but turned the tables on the situation so much that the man actually asked for the police to arrive. Viana said she was fine and the man posed no threat:

“I was fine,” Viana said. “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.”

Viana followed by saying she simply went home after the foiled attempt and made dinner. Earlier today, her hands hurt from punching the man but it wasn’t bad.

The strawweight most recently lost a decision to JJ Aldrich at last August’s UFC 227. She had won her previous five fights by first-round finish, showing off the skills that made her attacker no match for her.