Brazilian strawweight fighter Polyana Viana is a mixed martial arts fighter and Instagram star from São Geraldo do Araguaia, Pará. She is famous for being the strawweight fighter in the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC). In addition, the 29-year-old MMA fighter is also extremely popular on Instagram and has over 385 followers. Polyana has approved numerous fitness supplements, clothing, equipment and more on its official account. In addition, the fighter is also known as the ” Iron Lady”. Viana is one of the best MMA fighters in Brazil.

Polyana Viana: 6 Things About The “Iron Lady” 

1. She was born on June 14, 1992 and her birthplace is Brazil. 

The MMA fighter came into this world on June 14, 1992 in São Geraldo do Araguaia, Pará, Brazil. Therefore, Polyana Viana’s age is 29 as of 2021. 

2. She has been an eight-time state jiu-jitsu champion in Brazil.

Polyana Viana has garnered twelve MMA fights to her credit. Ten wins, all obtained before the limit, and two losses. 

3. On January 5, 2019, a man attempted to steal Polyana’s phone. 

The incident happened outside Viana’s apartment in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Also, she was waiting for an Uber near her home when the man approached her.

He also told the MMA fighter that he was armed. However, Polyana soon discovered that his weapon was fake. She fired two punches and a kick. The thief fell and UFC caught him in a choke. Later, they both sat in the same place and waited for the police.

At that moment he was unaware that he was attacking a UFC champion, a professional MMA fighter.  In an interview given to the American media MMAJunkie, the female fighter spoke of attempted theft:

In the evening of Saturday, while Polyana Viana awaits her bus/uber, a man approaches her. “When I saw him, he was really close to me, he asked me the time, but he didn’t move after I gave it to him…”

He said ‘give me your phone. Don’t try anything because I’m armed. ‘He was really close to me, so I thought if it was a gun, he wouldn’t have time to take it out. So I stood up and threw two punches and a kick. He fell, I took him in a rear choke and said ‘now we’re waiting for the police’ “

4. After she defended herself from her thief, she said: “now we’re waiting for the police”.

The athlete stayed in a rear choke position and scared the thief so much that he, himself, asked her to call the cops! 

Nicknamed “the Iron Lady” in her discipline, the young Brazilian did not let her attacker get away with it, quite the contrary. In addition to having neutralized him with the greatest difficulty, she badly beat him, to the point of disfiguring him. It took him two punches, a kick, and an armlock to protect himself from the assault. Fearing in turn for her safety, the man begged the fighter to call the police so that her ordeal could end. He was taken to the hospital for treatment.

“I got up, gave him two punches and a kick, then I sat him on the ground after a back choke”

“He didn’t react at all after taking the punches, I think he was scared. He asked me to let him go, and when I refused, he then asked me to call the police. I think he was afraid that I would hit him more ”.

5. For her part, UFC president Dana White praised the courage of her fighter by posting the photo of the young woman and her thief.

At age 26, Polyana made her UFC debut in February 2018, winning over Maia Kahaunaele-Stevenson. 

The robbery incident had worldwide repercussions after the publication on Instagram by the president of the UFC, Dana White, showing the criminal and clarifying that it was a “bad idea” to want to rob a strawweight like Viana, in whose record highlights the 2015 world jiu-jitsu title.

6. She is very close with her family back in Brazil.

Polyana Viana left the small Paraense city of Sao Geraldo do Araguaia, in Brazil to run after the dream of conquering the belt of the UFC, the largest MMA league on the planet. However, in pursuit of her goal, she had to leave behind little Deivid, her eight-year-old son. Thus, whenever she has a break in her schedule, the athlete seeks to visit her family. However, after her last loss, in August 2018, the fighter decided not to see her family again as a way to punish herself.

In an exclusive interview with an Ag Fight reporter, Polyana explained that after the last setback, against JJ Aldrich, she decided to focus on training in Rio de Janeiro and the United States, until a new opportunity appeared in Ultimate. 

“My son lives in Pará with my mother, in Sao Geraldo do Araguaia, this year I have not been able to see him yet, I saw him last year, on his birthday. This is because I got to go to his birthday, because I had already lost about five of his birthdays. And, I go when I can and this time I wanted to give myself a punishment for losing the fight, so I thought: ‘I’m going to train, train and train, then I see my family. So, I even punished them too, but we talk every day, by message application, telephone”, she explained.

In addition to the usual messaging apps and phone calls, the fighter revealed that she also uses a phone game to bond with little Deivid. 

“I have installed a game because of him and we talk a lot, because the game is online, and we talk a lot there, he opens up more to the game than to calls. On calls, he’s kind of shy, he doesn’t talk much … In the game he opens up more, talks more, talks about the matter … ‘Free Fire’ (the name of the game), I’m already addicted to the game, my teammates live fighting with me, at first I said : ‘What a bad game’. And he said he was going to protect me, I went after him, he died, I was left just watching him play, “she said.

“But now I have learned, it is a very good game, he can play alone, as a couple or as a team, but when I play with him, I play only as a couple so that the boys do not hear me talking, once we played as a team and there were two girls. They started talking to him and asked him if I was Deivid’s girlfriend. There I answered that it was the mother and the girls left the game, I think they were ashamed because they were getting along with him, “she added.