Schilling facing one battery charge for alleged barroom attack

Things aren’t looking good for Joe Schilling.

Former Bellator and GLORY Kickboxing competitor Joe Schilling went viral this week after he was seen knocking out a bar patron on Sunday night in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. Parts of the incident were caught on video where Schilling is seen delivering a brutal two-punch combo that instantly flattened the much smaller individual.

The 37-year-old Schilling later shared his side of the story where he claimed self-defense.

The busboy who happens to be black walks by and this idiot bumps into him and screams out, ‘Me and broke n— [sic] we don’t get along. The busboy was seriously offended but doesn’t want to lose his job.

As the night goes on this clown starts looking at me and rapping whatever song is being played while making eye contact with me. I’m like what’s wrong with this idiot. He yells, ‘HEY’ I turn around and he flexes on me… bad decisions are made every day.

As you can see from this video when he flexed on me I was scared for my life and simply defending myself against the evil in this world.

Now, the aggrieved party is taking action. MMA Fighting obtained a police report that identified the alleged victim as 31-year-old Justin Balboa, a busboy at an Outback Steakhouse restaurant. Schilling is now facing one misdemeanor charge of simple battery.

In Balboa’s conversation with law enforcement officers, he described Schilling as a “6-foot-5, 270-pound white male who just hit him for no reason.” But police say Balboa “would not elaborate on how or why the male punched him.”

The bar manager gave another side of the story to the police, saying Balboa “was extremely intoxicated and had possibly made an improper remark about the girlfriend/wife of the male who had struck him, which caused the fight to escalate.”

The manager also described Balboa as a “regular customer who routinely causes problems at the establishment due to his intoxication level.” According to the police report, “numerous other patrons of the establishment corroborated the manager’s story” to state that it was Balboa who started the incident.

After getting to watch the video, Balboa later told officers that he now plans to file a complaint against Schilling for the alleged attack. Attorney Robert Solomon released this statement to MMA Fighting:

It was something that should not have happened. It should not have happened. You watch that video and you cringe. This is a professional fighter.

To tell me you felt threatened as a professional fighter that’s fighting in the highest level of all the fighting, Bellator and all these things, I don’t buy it. I think it was uncalled for, and there’s consequences when you do things like that.

I think a professional fighter overreacted to a situation, that he didn’t need to do what he did. And to punch somebody as hard as he punched this guy, he’s lucky he’s not dead and we’re dealing with a different type of case.

Solomon added that his client is dealing with a “head injury” but they “don’t know the extent of it.” According to the Fort Lauderdale Police Department, no formal charges have been filed.

Erik Magraken of Combat Sports Law provided his own insight on the matter.

Schilling last fought in 2019 at Bellator 229 against Tony Johnson. He lost via third-round knockout and was released by the company last October.