UFC's Polyana Viana might've quit fighting if not for Facebook message exchange

Polyana Viana’s UFC debut was impressive enough to not only earn her a quick submission win but also a rare shoutout from Dana White to his 2.8 million Instagram followers.

To think that, if it wasn’t for a Facebook message, the UFC president may not have ever even had a chance to see her in action at all.

Viana (10-1 MMA, 1-0 UFC), 26, has been a professional MMA fighter for four years. Of the 11 fights on her record, only one of them ended in a decision – it also happens to be her sole loss. Her first big-stage experience came in 2015, with Jungle Fight, where Viana went on to conquer the vacant strawweight belt and defend it once.

What was supposed to be the first big push of her professional MMA career, however, almost spelled the end of it.

“I defended the belt in 2015, and then (Jungle Fight promoter Wallid Ismail) said, ‘You’re going to defend it again,’” Viana told MMAjunkie. “He scheduled the defense and. When it was very close, he postponed it. Then he scheduled it again, postponed it again. He did that like five times. So I said I didn’t want to fight anymore.

“I was only losing weight, away from my family, spending money to train in a different city. So I decided to stop. I went back home and said I wasn’t going to fight anymore. It was decided.”

Viana, who’d left college, a job at a gas station and had moved twice from her small town in her pursuit to be a full-time fighter, had even started looking for jobs. But then she heard about Alex Davis, a longtime MMA manager, and figured she’d try her luck.

Polyana Viana

“I sent him a message on Facebook, but I wasn’t really expecting anything to come from it,” Viana said. “And he replied right away. ‘Aren’t you the Polyana who’s in the UFC?’

“I said, ‘No, but I want to be.’”

Davis, at first, thought she was Poliana Botelho – a bantamweight from Rio’s Nova Uniao team who’d already made it into the UFC by then. But then he realized who it was: the same girl who’d earned a unanimous-decision win over Amanda Ribas, whom he also manages, to earn Jungle Fight’s vacant belt (Ribas is also in the UFC, but has been given a two-year suspension before her debut).

“I started talking to her and noticed she was a very nice person,” Davis told MMAjunkie. “She needed help. And she lived very far. I saw her fights – which is something I know how to do – and I saw she had great potential. Not only that, she was a good person.”

Davis saw in the bubbly Viana a full package. When she fought, Viana not only had great jiu-jitsu but seemed like an intelligent fighter who remained calm and collected even in bad spots. Outside the cage, he saw a charismatic and charming presence. But Davis also knew that, in her small town of Sao Geraldo do Araguaia, Para, she wouldn’t get the support that she needed.

Viana says Davis’ first suggestion was to get her to the U.S. But that step, given her 7-year-old son, wouldn’t be possible just yet. So he sent her to Rio de Janeiro instead, to train under his friend Tata Duarte at the ever-welcoming Tata Fight Team (TFT).

Viana was no stranger to moving – she’s lived in the cities of Belem and Maranhao before her decision to give up fighting brought her back home. Still, packing up and leaving again for yet another big city took some serious consideration and planning.

“It was hard,” Viana said. “I stalled Tata for like two or three months after talking to Alex. I had to look for sponsors. At that point I had stopped fighting. I didn’t want that for myself. So when I decided it, I had to look for sponsorship again. I waited for the mayo;  he told me he’d help me.

“A friend of mine bought a ticket for me, a date was set, and I went with nothing but determination. When I first got there, the only one who helped me was my mom. When I arrived, Tata got me a sponsor. And then more sponsors started coming along, a few of them from my city. And things started working out, you know.”

Viana says she went to Rio with a planned bout at surging promotion Fight2Night, but her team believed it was a bit too soon for her. So they kept working. Viana would only return to the cage in October 2017, 18 months after her Jungle Fight title defense, when she met – and choked out – Pamela Ferreira at WOCS 47.

Polyana Viana

Davis, in the meantime, already had been working on getting her to the UFC. In fact, Viana said, that could have happened the day she had her WOCS fight – which, judging by the date, would have to have been UFC 216. But Viana decided to honor her original commitment.

There are, of course, some risks that come with that – say, losing and perhaps closing that UFC window. Still, Viana decided to wait.

“It would have been a risky fight at flyweight,” Viana said. “She would have been a lot bigger. And I wasn’t in a rush.”

After her WOCS win, though, Viana hurt her shoulder. So when yet another octagon possibility came, this time to fight at UFC Fight Night 121 in Australia, she had to turn it down, too. Things, however, ended up working out for the best. Not only did Viana end up getting her UFC debut after all, she got to do it in her home state of Para.

Viana had been in somewhat big televised cards before at Jungle Fight. But there was an added factor to this particular debut.

“I’d never had everyone rooting for me,” Viana said. “Everyone shouting my name. That’s what made me nervous. I’m very shy. When they put a camera on my face, I don’t really like it.”

That certainly didn’t come across in her performance at Belem’s Mangueirinho Gymnasium. After drawing some blood from Maia Stevenson in a quick exchange, Viana did her work on the ground to earn her first UFC win.

The display didn’t come with a $50,000 post-fight bonus, but it did come with a to-the-point “very impressive,” accompanied by a shot of her, on the UFC president’s Instagram account:

Very Impressive @polyana_vianaoficial @fs2

A post shared by Dana White (@danawhite) on Feb 3, 2018 at 5:47pm PST

To the media at the arena, Viana said she was going to get a screen grab of the compliment and show it around. A few days later, Viana was still processing the unexpected attention.

“I’m happy and surprised,” Viana said. “I don’t know. Because he noticed me very fast. Right on my debut, and he already saw me and posted a picture of me on his Instagram? Sometimes I get goosebumps. I can barely believe yet, you know?”

In fact, the entire experience is a bit of a blur.

“I don’t even remember the post-fight interview, because I haven’t been able to watch the fight yet,” Viana said. “I was so nervous, I couldn’t believe it. I did exactly what I said I would. I told Tata I would take her down like that, and I would submit her just like that.

Polyana Viana

“Absolutely nothing changed from what I said. When the fight was over. I started jumping – I’d never celebrated like that before, I’ve always been quiet. I was so happy. I truly can’t even believe it.”

Someone who could believe it, however, was Davis. As someone who’s known to trust his instincts, he knew Viana was the right fit for the promotion. She just needed a chance to make sure they saw it.

“She’s everything the UFC wants,” Davis said. “I’m very very happy. I’m even happier because she has a son, she’s not rich, her mom owns a bar. And it’s my biggest pleasure in life to help people with more humble beginnings to make a living with fighting.”

Viana is both ambitious and down-to-Earth in assessing what could lie ahead. While she’s confident in her jiu-jitsu and physical strength for the division, she also knows there’s a lot of room for improvement in her skill set. While she knows that it will all depend on the matchups – and how well she fares in them, she also thinks “until mid-2019, I might have had the opportunity to fight for the title.”

Whatever happens, it seems like that Facebook message to Davis was worth it. Sure, the UFC contract was quite nice. But she may have gained something even more valuable in the process.

“It’s a family (at TFT). It’s so much different than any gym I’ve ever been to,” Viana said. “When Alex asked me if I wanted to go to Vegas, I said I wanted to stay – and Tata said he wouldn’t let me leave me, too.

“I didn’t have a dad. I was raised by my mom. Now I have someone looking after me. To me, he’s a dad. The best part of going to Rio was meeting him and master Philip (Lima).”