Real-life Fight Club 'tried to knock some sense into depressed friend - but ended up beating him to death'

Group decided staging fights was best way to spice up their lives

But when one member's mother died he became depressed

So they decided to pay him a visit and started punching him

They said it was to cheer him up, but it went too far

The three men, from Russia, eventually confessed to a van driver



They were jailed, and all received nearly 10 years behind bars



A real-life Fight Club group beat a grief-stricken friend to death in Russia after apparently trying to 'knock some sense into him'.

The group, which mirrored Brad Pitt's combat gang in the movie of the same name, decided staging fights was the best way to spice up their lives.

But when group member Mikhail Burdukov, 37, became depressed after his mother died his friends decided to pay him a visit.

Jailed: One of the members of a real-life Fight Club group who tried to knock some sense into their grief-stricken friend The victim Mikhail Burdukov, 37, became depressed after losing his mother, his killers said The group mirrored 1999 film Fight Club, starring Edward Norton (left) and Brad Pitt (right)

Andrey Hodirev, 36, Viktor Alexandrov, 42, and Vadim Blandin, 39, from Omsk, a city in south-western Siberia, went to his apartment where, as they later told police, he appeared to be in 'a bad way'.

They said they put him in the shower and began slapping him in a bid to jolt him back to reality.

'He seemed to make more sense when we slapped him so we kept on doing it,' Hodirev told detectives.

But the slapping grew more intense after Burdukov began to fight back and his friends were happy he seemed to be getting into the club's spirit.

The group, which mirrored Brad Pitt's combat gang in the movie of the same name, decided staging fights was the best way to spice up their humdrum lives Set to appeal: One of the defendants appearing in court in Siberia, Russia But after a few more punches were traded, he lay dead on the floor. That was when the three men panicked and decided to get rid of the body. They asked the driver of a minivan, Dmitrii Borodin, to help them transfer some construction material. 'I saw them carrying a carpet out of the building tied up with metal strings. At some point it fell on the ground and they put a lot of force into picking it up back again which meant it was heavy.

The group asked the driver of a minivan, Dmitrii Borodin, to help them as they tried to get rid of the body, but he became suspicious and called police

The group asked Dmitrii Borodin, to help them move transfer some construction material in the back of his van, but it was the body He said: 'I thought at the same moment, that there was something suspicious going on'

'I thought at the same moment, that there was something suspicious going on,' stated the driver.

After they dropped the body in a meadow, the men returned to the minivan and during their ride back home, they confessed everything to the driver, who tried to remain calm.

Fearing he might meet the same fate as the man in the carpet, he went to police later that day.

This week the trio were sentenced to nearly ten years each in jail - but they have said they will appeal, insisting they were only trying to help their friend get over his depression.