As much as I probably shouldn't have, I really enjoyed my first street fight in years.

I was picking up a friend from work when I ran into two horrible redneck biker types who were racially abusing a man who was quietly minding his own business. They were just itching for trouble and, although I could have avoided it, I was just so appalled by their treatment of a defenceless individual that I decided not to turn the other cheek for once, and said something to them.

They turned on me. The situation quickly escalated and the big one, who was maybe 120 kg, tried to head butt me. I unleashed a flurry of punches, grabbed some of his hair, pulled him forward and quite gently lowered him to the ground. Meanwhile, the smaller one, sporting a ZZ-top-style beard, came swinging at me with some overhands; but he had his eyes down so wore a couple of uppercuts.

By now ‘fatty’ was up again and hopping mad. I reverted to karate, swept his leg and gave him a mild kick on the way down. Almost immediately I had to deal with shorty again. They were probably as full of ‘Ice’ as they were with Bourbon — they kept getting back up! Big Bertha gets up a third time so gets another sweep plus a couple of ‘stay down pleases’.

I kept aware of where my little friend was at all times. We have been doing some two-on-one sparing of late, which really teaches you to keep one opponent in front of the other so they can't come behind for a king hit. So it wasn't like the movies — I didn't try to knock them out, rather I remained alert to the other’s follow-up.

By now I had backed across the road to where my car was. I tripped over the curb but luckily my larger friend was still lying prone and ZZ-top a little dazed. Since I had friends in the car I moved away from it and under some street lights. My new friends followed but were a little worse for wear and decided to scuttle away uttering somewhat hollow threats.