Viviane Araujo: ‘I’m Not Here to Play’

Footing under Viviane Araujo has grown unsteady ahead of her latest assignment in the Ultimate Fighting Championship women’s flyweight division.

The Cerrado MMA rep will look to defend her spot in the Top 10 rankings at 125 pounds when she takes on Karine Silva in a featured UFC 309 attraction this Saturday at Madison Square Garden in New York. A promotional mainstay for the better part of five years, Araujo enters the Octagon having lost three of her past four bouts. A week away from her 38th birthday, her UFC record sits at 6-5 across 11 appearances.

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“I’ve been in this UFC game for quite some time,” Araujo told Sherdog.com. “Early on, I got into the Top 10. Since then, I’ve been having tough fights. It’s a very competitive weight class. They’re all at the highest level. That’s important to me, so I can evolve my game and evolve as an athlete within the organization. I’m very happy with that. After all this time, I’m still in the Top 10. My goal is to get to the very top. I don’t choose my opponents. It’s whoever the UFC thinks is best at the moment. Lately, it’s all been highly skilled fighters. This shows how much growth there has been in women’s MMA.

“I’m training hard and dedicating my time to the flyweight class, climbing one step at a time so I can eventually ask for my title shot,” she added. “It’s my dream. I’m not here to play. I train hard and dedicate a lot of myself—every day.”

Silva, meanwhile, stands as one of the division’s more promising upstarts. The 30-year-old Gile Ribeiro Team rep has rattled off nine consecutive victories, eight of them finishes. Silva last saw action at UFC on ESPN 55, where she outdueled former Konfrontacja Sztuk Walki champion Ariane Lipski to a three-round unanimous decision on April 27.

“She’s a solid fighter who’s ascending,” Araujo said. “She’s doing great work [and] showing her potential. I see us having a war. I trained hard. My coaches—my whole team and I—put together a strategy to guarantee a win. We have no doubt. I know I will give my best, and I think so will Karine.”

Araujo finds herself on the rebound after she wound up on the wrong side of a unanimous decision against Natalia Silva at UFC Fight Night 235 in February. She underwent subsequent knee surgery to repair a torn meniscus, then had to withdraw from a scheduled booking opposite Jasmine Jasudavicius on July 13 when she took longer than expected to recover.

“We had to cancel since I wasn’t at 100% yet,” said Araujo, who completed the rehabilitation process by spending two weeks at the UFC Performance Institute, then returned to training at Cerrado MMA in Brazil. “I’m fully healed now. Physically, I have zero complaints. This is the best version of me. I’m feeling very strong ahead of this fight.”

A black belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu and luta livre, she did not have to look far for additional incentives ahead of her forthcoming clash with Silva. Araujo and her wife are expecting a daughter sometime between Christmas and New Year’s Eve.

“We’re ecstatic,” she said. “It’s further motivation to keep growing in the organization. My dream is that my daughter will be proud of all I’ve done and that she’ll see me as an ass kicker, a warrior.”