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For everyone else it was just your average Monday but for one Irishman it turned into quite an adventure. Novice MMA fighter and BJJ blue belt Brian Harrington, who incidentally became a bit of a viral star after the above image did the rounds recently.

The Straight Blast Gym member, home to Conor McGregor, had just seen Jurassic World before having to subdue two criminals. He posted the following story on his Facebook page;

“So last week my house was broken into and ransacked. A lot was taken including a laptop with alot of personal work, music, lyrics, photos, and videos ect.

Walking home today I notice my dad and my neighbours out on the road and I go up to see what has happened and it turns out the waterworks behind my house is currently being broken into. So I went up and a chase around all my area ensued. As it was quite likely they were involved in previous break-ins, which evidently may be the case (more to come on that), one guy split off from his crew and I gave chase to him, he then stopped and swung for me, I slipped the shot and took him down and restrained him (Knee Ride from Hell) then delivered him via shoulder lock restrained into Police custody, and ran with my neighbour to try catch the other, and we succeded in catching a second guy and delivering him to the police.

There was been a string of burglaries and robberies in my area over the last while. Two phones where also recovered from one of the culprits so could provide information as some of the few things they have said equate to this not being their first robbery in the area. Hopefully some justice is served. I would like to mention that all of the above was done while wearing a batman T-shirt.”

I reached out to Mr. Harrington to ask him how he felt during the whole thing and he seemed calm and ready for bed while jokingly asking for a fight with Orlando Jones, the WSOF signed fighter who fought crime on the streets of Seattle.

“I was literally wrecked tired on my way home to watch the Last Game Of Thrones Episode and flake out and all this stuff happens.”

I think having trained in BJJ and MMA in SBG helped me greatly I was able to stay calm and use restraints, pressures and controlling postures and stay as calm as one could be in that sort of situation. I would recommend anyone to try take up either or both, even just to learn as self-defence. Even the police were shocked and said I did a better job than them and asked me to consider joining the force.”

I surprised myself during the whole thing as I slipped a punch I grabbed a high body lock then took the back and sunk in a rear naked choke on one guy. The second my neighbour Karl helped restrain him but I used shoulder lock and a grip on the culprits hoody in a bow and arrow choke style lock. I put all that down to learning BJJ and MMA.”

Maybe Ray Sefo and WSOF sees this want me to fight Phoenix Jones (laughs). They can promote it as a sort of a Superman vs. Batman type fight.”

(Images via Brian Harrington, title photo by Ciaran Mahar)