When two robbers jumped Monique Bastos Tuesday night in Brazil and stole her phone, she responded with impressive force.
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Bastos, who was on her way to jiu-jitsu class at the time and is a strawweight mixed martial arts (MMA) fighter, grabbed the bike tire of one of the men as he tried to flee and then stopped him dead in his tracks, locking him in a triangle choke with her legs until police arrived.
The other robber, unfortunately, got away with the phone.
“I was going to my jiu-jitsu training when they arrived on a motorcycle and said they wanted our phones,” Bastos told MMAFighting.com. “I tried to hold my phone, and I realized they were not armed. When they tried to escape, I lifted the rear wheel of the bike and they fell on the ground. The guy who took my phone ran away, but I was able to get the other one.”
The MMA fighter with six fights on her resume has fought off robbers before, but those dudes were armed with knives.
“I’ve been through this a few times before, and it’s the second time I fought back,” she said. “There were two guys, and they were using knives, but I was able to use my jiu-jitsu and get my phone back. It’s a huge risk, but I did it to defend myself and my friends, so I used what I learned.”
The completely immobilized robber was identified as Wesley Sousa de Araujo and he was arrested 15 minutes later.