Raw video: Ben Fodor details how he allegedly halted pistol-whipping and group beating

Ben Fodor, aka “Phoenix Jones,” picked up his first WSOF victory on Friday night. On Saturday, he may have stopped a vicious armed attack.

Fodor took to Twitter earlier today to announce his involvement in the alleged crime.

“This was the first time in a while where I thought somebody was, like, going to die,” Jones says in a video taped on the streets of Seattle at 2:30 a.m. PT this morning.

Fodor was featured by ESPN earlier this year for his crimefighting efforts as part of the Rain City Superhero Movement, where he often dons a full costume and utilizes the “Phoenix Jones” moniker.

Seattle Police Department officials weren’t immediately available to comment, and a police report for the alleged incident hadn’t been filed in their online database as of this afternoon. However, Fodor gave MMAjunkie a video he had a friend shoot as he was recounting the incident, which took place outside Neumos, a live music venue in downtown Seattle.

“In the middle of the fight, I saw a man start striking overhand to another man’s face,” Fodor tells a Seattle police officer in the video. “At that point, I got closer and saw that he had a gun in his hand. He was pistol-whipping a person. The man fell down and tried to get up, and two other people started stomping his face.

“At that point, I kind of backed up. When they were stomping him, there was three. He gets up, and the guy comes back with the gun. At that point, I came through, and I hit the suspect with the gun, and he went down, and the gun came out. I took off. My friend Nate took off with me.”

Ben “Phoenix Jones” Fodor

Fodor later indicated that Seattle police officers arrived on the scene just as he disarmed the suspect. Fodor and his friend briefly fled the scene to pursue other suspects before returning to offer a statement, he told MMAjunkie.

“As weird as it sounds, getting hit in the face with a fist isn’t really scary to me because my defense is kind of questionable – I don’t know if you saw my fight on Friday,” Fodor said. “When I saw he gun though, I was like, ‘This dude is getting pistol whipped. That’s like a life-or-death scenario,’ and I saw a moment where I was like, ‘I think I can knock this guy out before he can really do any major damage.’ So I went and I hit him one time. He went down, dropped the gun, but didn’t go out. That’s when I got scared. Then I thought to myself, ‘Why has my punching power betrayed me?’

“He was surrounded by other dudes, so at that point, the minute he went down, everybody went down for the un – like three or four different guys. I was like, ‘I’ve got to get out of here.’ That’s when the fear really set in.”

Fodor said as police arrived on the scene, the alleged attackers fled, and he chased the man he believed picked up the gun, cornering him in time for police to make an arrest.

Fodor then noticed two other men who had been involved in the attack but were acting as if they were simply walking by the scene. Fodor said he then pointed them out to police, as well, and chased them for approximately two blocks before apprehending them, too.

While Fodor has long been involved in vigilante efforts, it would seem facing an assailant armed with a gun might give him pause to continue such efforts. However, Fodor insists he’d do the same thing if again presented with the same scenario.

Ben Fodor

“I don’t really think that there’s a choice,” Fodor said. “You’re sitting there, and you’re like, ‘Do I let this guy die in front of me? Or do I do what I feel like I’m capable of doing? I don’t feel like I egregiously went into danger. I was pretty sure I could get one punch off, and I was hoenstly like 90 percent sure he was just going to go out. If I knocked him out, then the situation would have been over because I would have just grabbed the gun. Problem solved. The only thing that went wrong was that my punch didn’t knock him out.

“I’ve dealt with guns so many times, and I’ve dealt with so many weird scenarios like this that I’m not really in as much danger as people would assume. If the guy had pointed the gun at me or wasn’t pistol whipping, I don’t think I would have done it. But the thing with pistol whipping is you can’t have your hand on the trigger. He’s got to stop, take his gun and put it in the other hand, switch hands, lift it up, point it at me and shoot. I just don’t think he could do it in time. I was willing to gamble on that.”

On Friday night, Fodor (6-1-1) picked up a first-round victory over Roberto Yong (2-3) on the NBCSN-broadcast main card of WSOF 23, which took place in Arizona. Today, he’s celebrating his stepdaughter’s birthday and said he’s going to stay out of any additional confrontations.

“No matter what crime I see, I am preoccupied,” Fodor said.  “I’m not going to jump in today.”

For additional coverage of WSOF 23, check out the MMA Events section of the site.