Douglas Viegas comments on career and origin of the nickname “Ninja”

The former basketball player and today digital influencer, Douglas Viegasalso known on the internet as the “Powerful Ninja”, gave an exclusive interview to the reporter Lucas Cesare, where he told a little about the beginning of his career. Ninja almost got to play in the NBA (American basketball league) and talked about what was missing for him to become a professional athlete.

“I played for the Cleveland Cavaliers one summer league. (…) But there was no basketball, right?! It was as far as my skill took me. You’re dealing with the best players on planet Earth. Today I feel very calm about this, you know? I see today that my mission is very clear to promote the game and as I say, today my dream is fully realized with the entry of other Brazilians in the NBA”, revealed.

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With regard to the nickname “Ninja”, Douglas did not reveal exactly how he started to be called that way, but he said that he came to be known as the “Powerful Ninja” after participating in Júlio Cocielo’s YouTube channel.

“(Who gave me the nickname) It was the divine. He said: ‘you are the most powerful ninja’. I heard this voice speaking to me and I said, ‘Is that me?’ He said: ‘Yeah!’. Then I said: ‘Hmmm, then it’s good’. Then I started talking and it caught on, but it really exploded after I made a video with Júlio Cocielo, right? Because then he asked me to introduce myself, I introduced myself that way and the crowd started calling me that”, told Nija.

Always very connected to the sport, after he ended his career on the courts, Douglas Viegas started to record videos for YouTube talking about basketball. This was the beginning of his Internet success story. Today, Douglas Viegas has more than one million followers on his Instagram profile, almost 500 thousand followers on his ‘Nunca Mexa’ channel on YouTube and more than 100 thousand followers on Twitch.

“On YouTube we started recording with ‘Canal Chuá’. A basketball channel, basketball program, which we had this dream of doing. And on the channel it was where we started to make an extraordinary basketball program, I am very proud of ‘Canal Chuá’, and it was where we met the internet people”he recalled.

‘Nunca Mexa’, in addition to being the name of Ninja’s channel, is a catchphrase widely used by the influencer. Douglas also revealed how the famous phrase came about.

“The ‘Nunca Mexa’ (the catchphrase) I brought from Joinville, in the South. I played in Joinville for five years and there I met a venomous bunch, Cesinha, César Azevedo, Daniboy… and one day we were walking around, doing bad things, walking around there and one day something happened, he said something and I I said ‘never touch’, and it stuck. And this I carry in my chest, it’s me, right?!”he stated.

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