THIS week we look at athletes in the fight game fight outside the arena to combat crime. We look at World Boxing Association (WBA) lightweight contender Anthony Crolla, former Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) fighter Keith Jardine and UFC heavyweight champion Jon Jones.
Crolla was scheduled to fight WBA lightweight champion Richard Abril on January 23, 2015, when he was seriously injured after confronting, then chasing two burglars who tried to rob his neighbor’s house. Crolla suffered a fractured skull and he broke his ankle in two places.
According to MailOnline, “The grim details are that Crolla was at home in Chadderton when he heard the burglar alarm sounding from next door. After a phone call went unanswered, Crolla is believed to have spotted from a window, intruders in his neighbor’s patio. Crolla reportedly shouted at the burglars, who fled. The 5-foot-8 boxer chased and caught one, but the other is alleged to have hit him over the head with a slab of concrete.”
The 28 year old’s future in boxing is uncertain, but what he did speaks volumes about his character.
Jon Jones is the reigning and defending UFC heavyweight champion. In a 2011 news conference, he narrates a time when he and his coaches went after a robber in New Jersey. According to the web site Ranker, “while searching for a place to meditate just hours before his title fight against Maurício “Shogun” Rua, Jones was approached by a couple who had just been mugged. Jones and his coaches gave chase to the robber—and not even with that much effort—because he’s a professional athlete and running fast ain’t no thang.”
Normally, people will be petrified if a 6’4″, 205-pound professional athlete ran after them after they ‘ve just committed a crime. Anyway, Jones went on to defeat Mauricio “Shogun” Hua via technical knockout.
Keith Jardine is a former UFC fighter who fought for 11 years, from 2001-2012. A mail thief picked the wrong day to steal mail and messed around with the wrong guy whose house he was stealing mail from. Jardine is 6’2″, 185 pounds. According to the Yahoo! sports web site, “New Mexico television station KRQE reported that Jardine spotted the thief pull up in his car at the fighter’s Albuquerque home, get out, open his mail box and take off with the contents in his car. Jardine then jumped into his own vehicle and gave chase.
Jardine caught up with the thief, confronted him and subdued him until police arrived on the scene and arrested him. The man, 39-year-old Richard Davenport, said that he had been picking up mail for a friend but police discovered that the backseat of his car was filled with mail from a number of different homes.” Deeds like these you’d usually expect from an athlete in the fight game because they’ve been immersed in self-defense their whole life.
There are similar stories of Filipino athletes displaying exemplary courage to thwart crimes brazenly committed in public, in the streets. Thanks to these athletes who at the time of the commission of the crime were in tiptop shape, the offenders failed to get away with their wrongdoing.
These athletes could have ignored these criminal acts simply because “it was none of their business.” Fortunately, they exercised courageous civic consciousness and engaged in “citizen’s arrest.”
May their tribe increase.