MMA media member subdues berserk drunken jerk on plane
“It was basically a citizen’s arrest in the air,” said Michael Stets after putting a rear naked on a nut at 30,000 feet. “So I got that goin’ for me, which is nice.”
Glory 15 took place in Turkey this weekend, and had an unfortunately dramatic ending, when Surinamese-Dutch kick boxer and mixed martial artist Tyrone Spong horrifically broke his own leg throwing a low kick at Gohan Saki. Saki got the Glory light heavyweight championship and $200,000.
Spong, a member of the Florida-based Blackzilians, got a flight back the US.
Passengers on the return flight included Spong, teammateRashad Evans, MMAMania and Darce Side radio‘s Michael Stets, Ryan Loco, and one Shahbaz Khan.
Ryan Loco @RyanLoco
Terror at 30k feet above the Atlantic aka drunk guy fighting everyone on Turkish Airlines. (what I woke up to)
Khan flipped out halfway through journey from Istanbul, accusing a passenger of stealing his laptop computer.
Khan, 30, spat on the passenger with the laptop as well as the person in an adjacent seat, stated FBI special agent Aaron Carp.
When the flight crew intervened, Khan took his unruly behavior to another level.
The defendant ran down the aisle of the plane and across the center row of seats, climbing over the passengers seated there, and then ran down the opposite aisle of the plane where he attempted to lunge at a passenger, Carp stated in the complaint.
He punched one flight attendant in the face causing a bloody nose, kicked a second in the groin and kicked a third in the stomach.
Finally he was restrained and tied to a seat by the crew with help. Police arrested Khan after the aircraft landed Sunday night.
Khan, a Pakistani national who is also a U.S. citizen, was charged with assault and intimidating of flight attendants. He was freed on a $25,000 bond signed by his mother, and must refrain from drinking alcohol as a condition of his release.
The cabin attendants were overwhelmed, Rashad Evans was out of earshot at the front of the plane, Tyrone Spong was out of earshot with a very broken leg, and Ryan Loco was asleep, so it was left to MMA media member Stets, who was watching “Die Hard” in his seat, to save the day.
Stets, 37, trains in New York under Stephen Koepfer at NY Combat Sambo.
Factor in a Caddyshack reference, and, well, Michael Stets couldn’t be cooler.
“I went over and said, ‘Do you want me to subdue him?'” Stets told FOX Sports. “I’ll just go over there and choke him out and this will be over.”
The flight attendants agreed and Stets applied a rear naked choke to the seated man. It wasn’t the most technical of submissions, but it got the job done. The man stopped trying to wriggle free, allowing the attendants to strap him down fully.
“I didn’t put him out,” said Stets. “I just did enough where I got his attention.”
“I knew enough to help out with the situation. It’s not like I saved a baby from a burning building.”
“The attendant told me he had been drinking. The stuff he was saying, either he was on meds or drugs and alcohol. He had some kind of medical imbalance. He was definitely off his rocker. … He was speaking coherently, but he wasn’t making any sense. He was just irrational.”
“I just feel like I did my job in helping the situation. I wouldn’t call myself a hero. It’s not like I disarmed a guy with a submachine gun. I helped get control of a guy and helped quell the situation from getting worse.”
“It was basically a citizen’s arrest in the air. So I got that goin’ for me, which is nice.”
