UFC fighter Polyana Viana says she beat up a man who tried using a cardboard gun to rob her

Polyana Viana is 10-2 as a mixed martial arts fighter and 1-1 with UFC.

And, apparently, she is 1-0 against some dude who was dumb enough to try robbing her using a cardboard gun.

Viana, a UFC strawweight, told MMA Junkie that she was waiting for an Uber ride in front of her apartment in the neighborhood of Jacarepagua in the West Zone of Rio de Janeiro around 8 p.m. on Saturday night, when a man sat next to her.

“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,” Viana said the next day. “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.’”

Viana said she kept the man subdued while others called police. She added that she later learned that the man had been using a cardboard cutout of a gun.

UFC President Dana White tweeted a photo Sunday of a bloodied man he said was the person who tried to rob Viana.

“I was fine,” Viana said of the incident. “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.”

charles.schilken@latimes.com

Twitter: @chewkiii