Watch: Former MMA Pro Puts His Training to Use When Armed Man Charges at Him
Never bring a knife to a gunfight, the saying goes.
Apparently, bringing a knife to a mixed martial arts fight doesn’t work out all that well, either.
Javier Baez, who told WPLG that he’d been “training my whole life,” demonstrated that point when he was approached in the wee hours of November 1 near his apartment in Cutler Bay by a man wielding a long knife.
Baez said he’d been out late for Halloween, so it was around 4:00 a.m. when he got back to his apartment building, only to be accosted by a man later identified as 50-year-old Omar Marrero, who was brandishing a 14-inch knife and yelling.
Marrero hit Baez’s car window and even opened his door so he could try to cut him.
Baez exited his vehicle in hopes of de-escalating the situation, but Marrero wasn’t having any. He put his knife down, but then went back to his car and came back with a smaller one — about 12 inches long, according to the outlet.
From a 14-inch knife down to a 12-incher was all the de-escalation Baez was going to get, as Marrero tried several more times to cut him with the smaller blade.
Surveillance video of the parking lot where the attack occurred shows Marrero rushing Baez and then getting picked up and slammed to the asphalt for his troubles.
Baez said once he had Marrero in a choke hold, he readily dropped his weapon.
“Once I started putting the choke in, he kind of just let it go because no one is worried about anything else but breathing when you’re losing air,” he said.
“I was able to hold him down with my knee and call the cops, and he woke up, cops came, and it was good,” he told WPLG.
“Easy peasy!” he added.
You can watch WPLG’s coverage, including the security camera footage of the attack and Baez’s “easy peasy” defense of his life, here:
Marrero was being held without bond, according to the report, and was charged with burglary with assault or battery and aggravated battery, according to jail records cited by WPLG.
For Baez’s part, he told the outlet he had suffered only “minor scratches to his hands” in his fight — such as it was — with Marrero, whom Baez said he had seen around the neighborhood before but had never met.
“Once it came to that, it’s all instincts. I couldn’t do much but just react,” Baez said. “I’ve been training my whole life — black belt jiu-jitsu, wrestled in college, I’ve got eight pro fights, MMA masters. I’ve got great training partners.”
Easy peasy.
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