Brazilians travel all over the world to compete and can be found on fight cards pretty much everywhere. It is less common for fighters to travel to Brazil in order to fight but that is exactly what Priya Sharma has done.
The Indian will be fighting in Sao Paulo this Saturday. She has been booked to face Brazil’s Ireni Oliveira in a battle between two strawweights who have only lost one fight each.
Oliveira comes into the contest with an impressive sounding 7-1 record. The 29 year old has never beaten an opponent with a win on their record though so this might not turn out to be quite as imposing a matchup as it sounds for Sharma.
Sharma’s record is 4-1. Her only loss came by way of split decision in a fight with top Australian strawweight prospect Lisa Kyriacou in Thailand last year.
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Dedicated to the craft
Sharma has been training in Brazil for several months. She appears to have been at the Academia Ribas Family in Varginha since July.
She is coming off a decision win over Jojo Rajkumari at Matrix Fight Night 10. The same night Puja Tomar was crowned as the promotion’s first ever strawweight champion.
Travelling so far to train for so long shows a serious dedication to the craft. Sharma has also spent time training in Thailand and clearly wants to level up her striking and ground game.
She will have been getting plenty of experience in the latter at the Academia Ribas Family which produced currently UFC strawweight star Amanda Ribas. Her father, Marcelo Ribas, is a sixth degree BJJ black belt and an MMA coach.
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Supportive messages
The two appear to have been training together and have traded supportive messages on Instagram. Ribas is currently ranked #10 at flyweight and #11 at strawweight by the UFC so Sharma couldn’t ask for a better qualified training partner.
It isn’t clear whether Sharma plans to continue competing in India once her trip to Brazil is over but she is bound to have made some serious improvements since her last fight. The Indian is clearly willing to do whatever it takes to succeed in MMA and will be looking to secure her first ever win in Brazil this weekend.
