Strawweight Polyana Viana has different priorities than climbing the ladder in the UFC at the moment.
After consecutive armbar victories, one would think UFC strawweight Polyana Viana might be looking for a step-up in competition for her next outing, but this is not the case. Following a win over Mallory Martin at UFC 258, the Brazilian is in no rush to face the upper echelon of the division, since she has different priorities at the moment.
In an interview with Combate, Polyana explained that she does wish to climb the rankings and fight for the title, but at a later time. For now, all Viana wants to do is keep on winning fights in order to earn money and help her family in Brazil.
“I do think I’m ready (to face the best in the division),” Viana said. “However, at the moment, it’s not what I’m targetting. At the moment, I want to make money to help my family, I don’t want to go up to go down again later. For now, I just want to make money. I don’t intend to fight for the title immediately.”
After losing three fights and coming close to getting cut by the promotion, Viana is happy to be in a more positive situation now. In her opinion, working on her psychological health helped her to improve in the Octagon, as well as having her family living close to her once again, in Rio de Janeiro.
“Unfortunately, I wasn’t doing well psychologically two years ago,” Viana said. “I’ve always trained hard, tried to put on a good performance, but you know an athlete must be in a good state of mind for that to happen. I’m doing really well now. My family is close to me again. Now you’ll get to know the real Polyana Viana.”
In her last two outings, Polyana Viana (12-4) tapped out both Mallory Martin and Emily Whitmire via armbar, respectively in February 2021 and August 2020. Before that, the 28-year-old suffered losses to JJ Aldrich, Hannah Cifers and most recently, in August 2019, Veronica Macedo.