Midnight Mania: UFC ‘Clown’ Beats Up Street Fighter, Internet Unimpressed

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MMA gyms are a funny place. In the same room and sometimes even the same class, a new student enjoying their one free week of jiu-jitsu might share the mat with a world-class UFC fighter. That accessibility is an unusual aspect of the sport. Certainly, nobody is walking into Arrowhead Stadium and having a catch in the vicinity of Patrick Mahomes!

There is a downside: strange people can also enter the gym. Wannabe tough guys, social media stars, alleged street fighters — the door is open to all of them. That’s how we end up with body builders being felled by “Wonderboy” low kicks and Sneako getting demolished by an ex-champion.

In the latest edition of UFC fighter vs. random person, Featherweight prospect Blake Bilder (8-2-1) takes on someone only described as a “street fighter.” Bilder knocks down the hapless street fighter twice then puts him to sleep twice using the Von Flue and triangle chokes.

The fight actually happened a few weeks ago, but Bilder is extremely active on social media and posted the clip again recently. It made rounds on Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok, and fight fans are largely unimpressed or outright angry.

Here’s a quick sample of the reactions:

“Bunch of grown men just filming and watching it happen and laughing, embarassing.”

“he is 34 as well what a joke”

“What’s his deal and why did he keep finishing this man? Pause”

“When does this clown fight again so we can hate watch”

“Being knockout out this many times in one day cannot be healthy …”

“No matter how many years of training you’ve done, destroying some untrained guy in jeans shows a lack of sportsmanship and a lack of discipline.”

“This is f—ked up. I dont get why you guys keep letting him spar just for content. That guy is clearly not going to be okay after all this.”

Like most fighters nowadays, Bilder joined the UFC roster via Contenders Series. Since then, he defeated Shane Young via unanimous decision in a successful debut, but he’s lost his last two via unanimous decision. At the moment, Bilder does not have a fourth UFC appearance booked.

Insomnia

Matt Brown shredding!

Slick work from close range:

Josh Koscheck is one of the more underrated wrestlers of UFC history, overshadowed by a GOAT. His blast double was incredible!

Only one thing is certain here: there will be blood! This is a perfect 145-pound veterans booking.

A fancy edit of “The Suga Show.”

Circling a pair of wrestlers for the final takedown-wins-it-all match up of practice is a time-honored tradition.

“F them kids” — Michael Jordan, Tim Elliott

Brian Ortega is keeping it weird ahead of Noche UFC.

Slips, rips, and KO clips

Stabbing front and powerful round kicks aimed at the same target:

Cumulative strangulation throughout all the transitions caught up to him.

A knockout overshadowed by denim and the promotion’s name.

Random Land

Hilarious tweet or brilliant short story? The line is blurred.

Midnight Music: Jangle pop, 1983

Anecdote of the Week: Oh man, I have so many stories that could go here.

A shocking amount of random people walk into Team Alpha Male and try to stir s—t with the professional athletes. Somewhat well-known back in 2017, there was the incident where some online body builder weirdo showed up to TAM to scuffle with Cody Garbrandt, got his hat slapped off by the 130-pound front desk guy, and then fled the wrong direction down a one-way street just before “No Love” actually arrived. Later, he allegedly faked his death on Twitter.

I wasn’t there in person for any of that though, so here’s my silly one: for several years, I worked as an assistant coach to Urijah Faber, helping him run an 8:30 AM drills class three times a week immediately leading up to the official pro practice. The class was open to the public, but if pros showed up, it would be tailored to them. If not, it was a lot of Urijah’s favorite jiu-jitsu sequences. I either helped drill with the pros or took over instruction of the civilian grapplers, depending on the demands of the day.

One day, we just have a group full of regular jiu-jitsu folk. There is, however, one newer sign-up. The man was probably 220 pounds of muscle and mental health issues. The drill class didn’t feature any live rolling, because it was … a drills class … and the guy didn’t have the ability to focus for that long. His expression was growing darker by the minute, and his drilling partner was looking visibly concerned. Sensing a looming disaster, Urijah walks over to chat.

As I’m instructing a group on how to lock up a fundamental triangle choke, I hear the frustrated proclamation, “I just want to roll!” Rather than simply saying no, or this isn’t that kind of class, or you don’t know enough to roll yet, or I don’t need this I own the gym and have a huge net worth, Faber accepts without blinking. He rolls with the erratic newcomer for the better part of 20 minutes and shows up to the end-of-class huddle covered in finger nail scratches. The other guy is too exhausted to join the huddle, laying in a pool of sweat that the pro team will shortly be jogging through.

Long story short: you can probably convince a Hall of Fame UFC fighter to wrestle you through sheer disruptiveness.

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Sleep well Maniacs! More martial arts madness is always on the way.