Top-ranked UFC Strawweight veteran Amanda Ribas has just gone viral for landing a huge throw on Brazilian professional bodybuilder Julio Balestrin in a recent training session. The two athletes squared up against one another in a friendly manner for a grappling session and Ribas started out by feinting some superman punches. Balestrin started to chase her around and tried to get a hold of Ribas, but that gave her the opportunity to use his momentum against him. One reach too many and Ribas had secured wrist-control to swing underneath him, launching him with a drop seio-nage that saw him land face-first onto the mat.
Ribas secured top side control and the friendly sparring match ended there, but Balestrin revealed that he suffered a pretty big welt just above the corner of his eye from the Judo throw. Although Balestrin’s exact weight is unknown, he has competed in the over 100kg division during his bodybuilding career. Given that Ribas frequently makes the MMA strawweight limit of just 52kg and has at most competed at 57kg for flyweight fights, it’s a safe bet that Balestrin weighs at least twice as much as the UFC veteran. Being able to execute such a devastating throw on anyone with that much of a size advantage is an incredible achievement.
It shouldn’t come as much surprise that Ribas is capable of that though, and not just because she’s a professional MMA fighter. Her father, Marcelo Ribas, is a Judo and Jiu-Jitsu coach and Ribas has spent practically her entire life training in grappling. She even made it to the Brazilian national youth team for Judo and has since used her elite grappling to great effect in MMA. Ribas currently holds a 13-5 professional MMA record and is ranked in the top ten of both the UFC strawweight and flyweight divisions, so she’s definitely not someone that should be overlooked no matter how big the opponent is.
Happy Punch shared the footage of UFC Strawweight Amanda Ribas throwing a professional bodybuilder on to his face in a. recent post to their official Twitter account:
125 pound UFC fighter Amanda Ribas slammed a professional bodybuilder on his face 😯 pic.twitter.com/JTq6WcrDiR
— Happy Punch (@HappyPunch) October 14, 2024
