Women’s jiu-jitsu doesn’t get a lot of love. (The IBJJF itself only just decided to start awarding female competitors the same purses as men last week.) But it blinked onto the social media radar this week when competition footage of a 9-year-old girl taking apart arms in competition went viral.
Apolonia Nuncio is the young no-gi practitioner who set social media aflame after her big sister posted video of her armbar submission victories to Twitter with the caption “my 9 year old sister is a badass:”
The video got picked up by grappling outlets, but blew into “1 million+ views” category when mainstream accounts like Now This and UFC featured her highlight reel, which includes two armbar wins and two opponents cradling their elbows in pain afterwards:
The videos have caused outrage among some viewers–including some misguided souls who, bless their hearts, think it’s wrestling and assert Apolonia lost the match when she “pinned herself”–who feel that referees at the competition did not stop the matches soon enough, causing the injuries seen at the end of the matches.
Regardless of referee performance, Apolonia did exactly what grapplers are taught, which is set up a strong technical submission and follow through until the tap.
Props to this fledgling 10th Planet “badass” for one seriously impressive competition performance.
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