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Former UFC middleweight champion Luke Rockhold claimed he used a “vicious front-kick” to fend off the attack of a “wild” assailant during a recent “casual stroll” with his dog along Santa Monica Boulevard in California.
Rockhold revealed the crazy story, which can only be described as a social distancing nightmare, during his appearance this week on Submission Radio. The ex-UFC fighter said he was taking his dog for a walk just a few blocks away from his home and was looking to grab a bite to eat when he ran across a group of people that sent warning signals to his brain.
Suddenly, one of the people, a woman who Rockhold described as “homeless…she looked like, probably meth or something…just nasty…super out of it” made a shocking move to rush toward Rockhold.
“As I got closer, she popped up out of nowhere and ran at me like some zombie or something,” Rockhold said. “It was wild. It was like the last thing I expected. I was just walking and minding my own business with my dog, and this chick just runs at me within 15 feet or something.”
Rockhold said it appeared the woman was trying to scare him and that she was running toward him to spit at him, presumedly to threaten him with the coronavirus.
“She just jumped and started to run at me like [screaming] and she started…like she was gonna spit on me,” Rockhold said. “Like, it was like a full, just like trying to scare me or infect me [with COVID-19] kind of thing. I don’t know what she was on, but it didn’t look like anything I want to be around.”
Obviously, the heat of the moment is exactly when Rockhold’s training kicked in. Where a normal human being might have simply turned the other way and ran away from the strange situation, Rockhold stood his ground and fired off a “vicious front-kick” that sent his would-be assailant flying through the air.
“And it happened so quick, so instinctually,” Rockhold said. “The thing just ran at me…And I didn’t know what to do.”
“And as it got close to me I just reared up with just a vicious front kick and just launched that thing in the air…,” Rockhold said. “And the thing just went up, landed on the ground and literally like started quivering like a vampire frying in the sun or something.”
It was a lesson the would-be attacker probably won’t forget anytime soon.
Rockhold nabbed UFC gold back in 2015 but lost his title to Michael Bisping the following summer. He’s 1-2 since losing his 185-pound belt with both losses coming via knockout. Still, Rockhold also said during that same interview that he might be on his way back to the Octagon soon.
Who knows? Maybe this harrowing experience is exactly what the fighter needed to get his fighting career back on track.
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Twitter: @Kelsey_McCarson