Man attempts to rob UFC fighter Polyana Viana, gets beating instead

If you’re going to rob someone, best make sure they’re not a UFC fighter. That’s a lesson some ‘poor’ thug in Rio de Janeiro learned when he accidentally took on strawweight Polyana Viana as she sat outside her apartment building waiting for an Uber.

Viana shared the experience with MMA Junkie’s Fernanda Prates, which went down on Saturday night.

”When he saw I saw him, he sat next to me,” Viana recounted. “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.’”

It turns out the man’s gun was just a cardboard cutout. Once his so-called weapon was revealed, the would be robber basically gave up.

“I was fine,” Viana continued. “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.”

This isn’t the UFC fighter’s first brush with crime fighting. When she lived in Belem, Viana said she took on two men on a motorcycle who once again were trying to get at her cell phone.

Viana is 2-0 against muggers and 10-2 in her MMA career. Currently sitting at 1-1 in the UFC, she kicked her promotional run off with an impressive first round submission win over Maia Stevenson before dropping a decision to JJ Aldrich at UFC 227. Viana is currently without a fight ... so watch out, Rio criminals.