Man Who Tried To Mug Female MMA Fighter Ends Up Begging Her To Call Police
RIO DE JANEIRO (CBS Local) -- Definitely do not mess with Polyana Viana. The mixed martial arts (MMA) fighter left a man battered and bruised after he allegedly tried to rob her in Rio de Janiero.
Viana, an Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) strawweight, said she waiting for her Uber in front of her apartment complex Saturday night when a man approached her.
"When he saw I saw him, he sat next to me," she told MMA Junkie. "He asked me the time, I said it, and I saw he wasn't going to leave. So I already moved to put my cellphone 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."
The gun turned out to be a cardboard cut-out.
"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," Viana said. "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.'
Viana, 26, says she beat up mugger so badly he begged her to call the police.
"He said, 'Call the police, then' because he was scared I was going to beat him up more," said Viana.
Viana says police took the man away for medical treatment and then to the police station. Viana said she also learned at the station that the man had been arrested before and had only recently been released.
