Video: MMA Fighter Body Slams Knife-Wielding Florida Man

Javier Baez dropped a Rock Bottom on a man who charged him with a 14-inch knife and then choked his attacker out.

Everyone knows you gotta watch out for Florida Man. But maybe someone should tell Florida Man to watch out for former MMA fighters.

Javier Baez has a 5-2-1 pro fighting record that he amassed between 2011 and 2018. Now he can add an informal but very important win to his resume: he managed to survive an attack by a knife wielding maniac.

Video of the incident shows 50-year old Omar Marrero charging at Baez with a giant knife. Baez responds to the attack by body slamming Marrero to the ground and then putting him in a head and arm choke.

“Once I started putting the choke in, he kind of just let [the knife] go,” Baez said in an interview with ABC News 10. “Because nobody’s worried about anything else but breathing when you’re losing air.”

As for what set the man off?

“Guy was out there screaming on the phone, literally was fighting for a while with some woman,” Baez recounted in an interview with CBS Miami. ”He tapped on my door window. I told him to leave me alone, and then he came at me with a knife. I told him ‘Leave me alone. I’m calling the cops.’”

“I hope he doesn’t break my window. That’s all I cared about.”

Baez credits his time training at MMA Masters gym in Miami for making the reaction second nature.

“When you practice every day, you don’t think about it,” he said. “Put his belly to the floor, put my knee in his back, and called the cops.”

Marrero was arrested and faces two felony charges for the attack.