KSW champ Ariane Lipski leads a bit of a double life.

There’s the one that happens where Lipski, who defends her flyweight title at Saturday’s KSW 42, reigns as the “Violence Queen.”

“In Poland I have many fans,” Lipski told MMAjunkie. “They ask for my autograph. They get emotional when they see me and when they’re able to get pictures with me. They send me messages because they want to stop by the hotel to see me.

“There’s a lot of fan attention there. Every day, people send me messages on social media, they ask when I’m going to fight again. I can’t even answer all of them during fight week, though I always try to interact as best as I can.”

Those fans who seem a glammed-up Lipski looking regal at the center of promotional posters of such a huge brand in Poland, however, probably don’t imagine the low-key life the 24-year-old champ leads when she returns to her home grounds in Curitiba, Brazil, where most of the recognition for her accomplishments still comes from within the MMA community.

Lipski, for instance, still teaches classes for added income. And while she does have some sponsors and supporters, they’re not that easy to come by considering KSW isn’t that big in Brazil yet. Sure, the financial situation has seen some improvements recently – but it still hasn’t been enough for Lipski to afford training abroad.

“The financial struggle remains to this day,” Lipski said. “Hopefully this year, things will change. But it was only after the belt that I got a little bit of breathing room. Before that, what I made with my fights went straight to cover what I spent in my preparation.”

It’s been quite a recent shift, considering Lipski only got said belt in May 2017, with a first-round submission of Diana Belbita. She’s defended it once, via submission, though this time over fellow countrywoman Mariana Morais. On Saturday, Lipski (10-3) meets Argentina’s Silvana Gomez Juarez (6-1) eyeing a second title defense.

OK, so maybe Lipski isn’t out there buying fancy lamborghinis or carrying tiny dogs inside designer hand bags, but she’s not complaining too much, either. After all, life since joining KSW has taken a few positive turns from the days when an 18-year-old Lipski gave up everything to become a professional fighter.

“I could choose to study and work, but I liked training too much.”

Lipski had to grow up fast. More precisely, at age 17, when her mom moved to a different city and left her in Curitiba. Lipski was left living with her grandfather, who was sickly and retired, and couldn’t afford to give her much more than a room in his house.

“I had to work to support myself,” Lipski said. “To buy food, to catch buses, to afford the gym.”

Lipski had been training muay Thai by then, and had even done some amateur fights. But with her new financial needs, a problem arose: between working, studying and training, something had to give.

“I stopped studying in order to work and keep training,” Lipski said. “I could choose to study and work, but I liked training too much – so I chose that. At the time, I didn’t really know what I was doing. I was just going with what I wanted.”

First, she worked at a lawyer’s office – somewhat illegally, considering she was underage. Then, at a dental clinic. But, at 18, arriving at the gym where she met her current coach also meant finally seeing fighting as a viable career choice. So the job at the clinic went, too. While there was a rough workless gap in between, her coach eventually got her a job working the front desk of the gym.

“I could leave the desk to train, so I could just fully put my effort into it all day,” Lipski said.

This isn’t the beginning of some fairy tale story. While Lipski had a relatively quick rise compared to some of her less fortunate peers, things don’t happen overnight. She didn’t have money. She missed her mom, who wasn’t that terribly on board with her career choice. She thought, numerous times, about giving up.

But, thanks in great part to coach Renato Rasta, she didn’t. Not even when her early record showed a discouraging three losses in five fights. And then, in 2015, came the call that would turn things around. For someone who had to get an emergency passport because she didn’t even own one, KSW was a whole new world.

“I went from small events to this really high-end one,” Lipski recalled. “I got there and had a hotel, got paid in dollars, food, sponsorship. On fight night, you have your own warm-up area. You have food, someone to wrap your hand, a medical staff. I didn’t have any of that.

“(In the local circuit), I had to buy my own hand wraps. I warmed up with everyone else. There was no water. Nothing to eat, no doctors. Getting there, I took it in a positive way. It didn’t feel like pressure, but yet like the reward for everything I went through.”

It wasn’t all joy from there; even after the thunderous knockout win that sealed her debut, over a then-undefeated fighter, Lipski wasn’t getting a new booking by KSW. So off she was, back to the local circuit. It took yet another eye-popping knockout, over Juliana Werner, to stamp Lipski’s ticket back.

And if her promotional debut hadn’t been enough to catch their attention, her triumphant return was.

“They gave me Sheila Gaff, who’s a former UFC athlete and had a name,” Lipski recalled. “She fought Amanda Nunes, she fought Sara McMann. And I knocked her out, too. That’s when I got some respect and started making my name.”

“It’s surreal to be in this sort of fairy-tale land”

Beating Juarez at Lodz’s Atlas Arena on Saturday would mean a ninth straight win on Lipski’s record. And it will also mean that there will be just one fight left on the current KSW contract that, according to Lipski, has kept her from answering UFC calls twice before.

Adding a 24-year-old Brazilian finisher who’s already made a name for herself in another country to its newest division certainly wouldn’t be the worst thing for the UFC. But, even if they do come knocking again, that doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll get their wish.

“KSW wants to renew my contract, so if they give me a better offer than the UFC, I don’t have a reason to go there,” Lipski said. “The UFC has a lot of athletes, I’ll be able to test myself. Of course, I want to go to the UFC, but I really like KSW. I really like the promotion and my fans.

“I’m still young. I have time to stay there, train and defend my belt a few more times. In the future, I think it will be inevitable and I’ll go to the UFC. But, for now, KSW has been good.”

The inevitability of the UFC, though, has less to do with a label than it does with Lipski’s own, personal idea of the ultimate success.

“My final goal is to be No.1 in my division,” Lipski said. “If I could do that outside the UFC, I’d do it. But, since the UFC is the biggest promotion, I’ll probably have to fight the best in the UFC to become No. 1. But it’s not that my dream is to be in the UFC or hold their belt. My dream is to be the best in my weight class and that’s what I’m going to pursue.”

Whether that dream will come to fruition, we’re just going to have to wait and see. But, for now, Lipski is at least getting to reap the fruits of the seeds she planted six years ago, when she took the gamble of a lifetime. And she’s not letting them get to her head.

“We end up forgetting our past, a little, because this is my reality now,” Lipski said. “I travel, I have fans, I take pictures and give interviews. But whenever I start complaining about something, I think, ‘Wow, I’ve been through so much worse.’ I always think about my grandpa’s house. About the difficulties, the crying, the awful things I had to overcome to be here.

“I always try to remember that. It’s surreal to be in this sort of fairy-tale land, but I have to remember the reality: that I have to train and to win because, if I don’t, at any point I can get back to that.”

For more on KSW 42, check out the MMA Rumors section of the site.