details here

A fight breaks out at the Venetian in Las Vegas and my friend uses his Brazilian Jiu Jitsu skills to defuse the situation.

So now poker players are having to make critical, on-the-spot decisions related to land-based casino security and then cross their fingers that the casino won't 86 them, or that they don't wind up in hot water themselves.

wpwp Michael Haag imo -- but still, it should be the responsibility of Venetian security personnel to respond so that other patrons aren't forced to.

Mike looked around for security before intervening. He is well versed in mixed martial arts and knew what he had to do to stop the attack. I agree that it is a dangerous gamble to get involved in that situation but in the heat of the moment you have to go with your instincts.

I agree, it's just the huge liability and the impossible situation that Mike is forced into that's concerning.

Like what if he goes to jail? Would that have affected any probation?

Trial what happened 100x... does it end with a #VictoryDinner most of the time? And whoever it is may be well-versed, but like he said there's always the risk of a knife or broken glass that can change the equation and force a patron to assume even more liability.

Genuine act of heroism by Mike for sure, but there's a clear risk to any customer when a casino can jettison off its critical security responsibilities to third-parties who aren't formally tasked with, trained for, or paid for, providing such a service.

On Sunday I was driving to the store. A couple was on the side of the road the girl was hitting the guy as I drove by. I thought about stopping for a nanosecond. When I drove by 15 minutes, later they were hugging.

Anyone else hear the woman yelling for him to Stop the chokehold on the BF, AFTER being hit and choked herself? I'm sure that situation went super well when the couple got back to wherever they ended the night, and I'm *100% positive* that he learned his lesson about putting his hands on women.


.....well not really, but Kudos to Mike for choking out a P.O.S. who deserved it. The world needs more people that will stand up for the defenseless

WORLD STAR!!!

Pretty cool story

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPXla4aiS3k

Michael Haag itches to use things he's learned in MMA training - finds excuse.

That's pretty awesome that poker helped him turn his life around. Poker in federal prison, I wonder what that's like.

It’s a question you don’t want first hand knowledge of. I’m surprised he could play at all. I used to play bridge at FCI Morgantown and the cops would sneak up on us. Our scoring pad was confiscated one time and left us written up until the Warden’s wife set things straight.
Sports betting was big there...I heard of bets in the thousands placed. Some bookies there placed off site wagers...one welsher had his wife’s car set on fire. Bets on softball, basketball...and I witnessed three guys bet a hundred bucks a throw sitting at the pond throwing bread. First strike from a fish won.

"I agree, it's just the huge liability and the impossible situation that Mike is forced into that's concerning. "

The situation was not impossible as I believe it actually occurred.

Genuine act of heroism here, there are all sorts of legal reasons to walk away but he did the right thing

Also huge lapse from Venetian security which is pretty concerning if a random passer by has to stop a guy from choking out a girl after punching her on the casino floor

iI got this impressioon too, of overreaction, reminded me of how white cops overreact in the USA. Wasn't the boyfriend standing still and the fighting part was over? Was this necessary, rather then approach, stand between them and try to reasonably difuse the situation until security comes? I am against all type of violance , i know that sometimes there is n choice, but this one of those times..

Not only that, but the person who had to fade having charges pressed is the one who stopped the attacker, rather than the actual attacker. Totally bassackwards. Props to Mike.

Hard to say, because none of us were there. However, standing between them puts Mike in possible harm's way (after all, the other guy just hit his own girlfriend). On the other hand, Mike's using a BJJ technique neutralizes the situation with relatively minimal risk to himself. So of all the possible actions –*particularly in the heat of the moment – I find no fault in Mike's decision.

When a dude has the audacity to lay out his gf in a setting like this who knows what he's going to do next.

There seem to be better ways to deescalate situations like this, usually like you know verbally confronting the guy first, which generally works, especially in a public setting.

It seems like someone with high level martial arts skills should only be using them as a last resort, which doesn't appear like it was the case here. Also, what if Michael cold cocked the guy in the head and KO'ed him instead? That also deescalates the situation with no risk to himself. Is that still fine?

I mean I'm not upset a scumbag POS got choked out, but calling him a hero? I dunno. If some normal random dude verbally confronts the perp and the perp backs off and chills out is he a hero also?

Incredibly stupid. From that position he can't see anything the guy is doing. He's lucky he didn't get a knife in the femoral.

I can't disagree that talking it out would be a better first step in the majority of instances, but according to the account, the BF was already in the process of choking her when Mike decided to jump in.

Sure, we can all draw up the perfect, optimal response in retrospect (and from a distance). Given the spur-of-the-moment nature of this, though, I think Mike was just fine.

Weird situation, no matter how you look at it. Once Mike was choking out the BF, you hear the GF yelling "Stop! Stop! Let him go!" in the video. Wait, so did she want to get choked out?

The biggest danger to Mike probably was the GF going after him with a bottle or other weapon.

Hats off to Mike!

lol this

No, guy worked hard to be able to stand up for the integrity in his being and now ragamuffins in his presence get wrecked for clowning, and derpers on the internet critique it from behind their computer screens.

He is not samurai

oh really? And then he runs into someone who doesn't care and finds him too self priviledged to act like that deciding whats right or not and taking on himslef the jury and the punisher role and things end very sadly, i have seen it many times, "good" guys full of themselves end up in coffin because they push it to extremes.