Top BJJ competitor and ADCC veteran Haisam Rida just got into an altercation with an alleged carjacker and stopped him using his skills as a grappler. The incident happened right outside the B-Team Jiu-Jitsu training location, the team that Rida has recently moved to Austin, Texas in order to join. Rida is a physically-imposing athlete and a highly-experienced martial artist, so really just about the last person you’d want to try and commit a crime against. He has been a top competitor for several years now, but enjoyed his breakout moment at ADCC 2022 when he submitted Roberto ‘Cyborg’ Abreu with a beautiful armbar.
Craig Jones recently did an episode of the El Segundo Podcast where he explained the background behind the incident, as it actually happened right after finishing filming for another episode:
“We leave this podcast studio, we’re walking next door and we hear the commotion. We go into the staffroom, we think ‘oh, we’ll go back and we’ll watch the cameras.’ What takes place is Haisam Rida is having a nap in our staffroom… He’s innocently taking a nap on the casting couch so he’s asleep, so he’s not looking at the screen that has all the cameras on… Gundle’s walking, he’s entering through the back door and he sees a guy in Haisam’s backseat just gathering stuff up.”
Apparently it didn’t take any time at all for Rida to leap into action once he was made aware of what was happening:
“He comes in through the back door and he wakes Haisam up and says ‘Hey, do you have a friend here or something? There’s someone in your backseat.’ Haisam tears off outside… He runs out the back door and he sees the guy going down the street with his stuff. He just pursues at high speed… Haisam takes off miles ahead, catches the guy, he’s trying to drag him back and the guy’s sorta resisting here. He’s trying to resist, trying to get away, he’s obviously freaking out. That’s the last guy you wanna see, that would be absolutely frightening for anyone here. Haisam grabs him, hits him with a massive f*cking deashi harai, I think probably broke the guys leg at this point… He holds him down, I think he choked him out a couple of times, maybe popped the arm.”
Although some might be a little concerned for the health of the alleged thief after being on the receiving end of whatever a top BJJ competitor like Haisam Rida is able to dish out, apparently he was largely fine. Jones even explains why he seemed to be in bad shape in the small amount of footage that emerged:
“As soon as (the police) came, the guy started playing dead pretty much.”
Haisam Rida uploaded footage of the aftermath of him stopping the alleged carjacker in a recent post to his official Instagram account and although the footage doesn’t show the incident itself, it does show the suspect being loaded onto a gurney and Rida being questioned by law enforcement:
