Stopping attempted robbery using MMA background came naturally to Mayura Dissanayake

(This story first appeared in Tuesday’s USA TODAY.)

If you ask Mayura Dissanayake what he was thinking when he rushed from his post behind the cash register of a Houston gas station and straight into the teeth of a violent armed robbery in progress earlier this month, he’ll tell you it was simple.

“I wasn’t thinking,” Dissanayake tells USA TODAY Sports. “I just saw these two guys beating my co-worker up. I just ran outside without thinking about it.”

It helped that Dissanayake, 24, is an amateur MMA fighter with about six years of martial arts training. He began with Sanda, a form of Chinese kickboxing, which he learned growing up in Sri Lanka, and continued with the full compliment of mixed martial arts training that he took up shortly after moving to Houston two years ago.

All in all, Dissanayake estimates he’s had five amateur bouts, which is why he wasn’t afraid to jump in and help when thieves attacked his co-worker at the Little Buddy Fuel Depot on July 10. His co-worker was returning from a bank run with a sack full of cash when two men jumped out of an SUV and began beating him in the gas station parking lot, Dissanayake says.

Once Dissanayake looked out the window and saw the assault in progress, he sprinted outside and immediately kicked one assailant in the head before turning on the other with a punch combination that sent him staggering backward. Apparently realizing they’d gotten themselves into a situation they weren’t prepared for, the thieves began to retreat, but not before Dissanayake dropped one with a punch and subdued him with kicks as his fellow assailants fled without him. The story soon went viral and has garnered Dissanayake worldwide attention.

“I just wanted to help him, and I know I can fight,” he says. “While I was running out, I saw their hands, and it didn’t look like they had guns, so I wasn’t too worried.”

That nonchalant attitude comes as no surprise to Saul Soliz, who trains Dissanayake at the Metro Fight Club in downtown Houston. The Sri Lankan walked into his gym about a year ago, Soliz says, and told him he wanted to continue the training he’d begun back home.

“I don’t have a lot of guys from that region, so I didn’t know what to expect,” Soliz says. “But he had a pretty good skill set already when he walked in the gym. It was a pleasant surprise.”

Soliz trained Dissanayake for one bout in the Legacy Amateur Series back in March, and has been working with him for another amateur bout with Savarese Promotions in Houston on Aug. 23.

The proximity of the upcoming bout could be one reason Dissanayake was in no hurry to tell his trainer about his risky gas station heroics. As one might imagine, street fighting with multiple assailants is generally frowned upon in the weeks leading up to a fight. Then again, this was a special case, even if Dissanayake doesn’t seem to see what the big deal is, according to his coach.

“The funny thing is, I didn’t hear about it until Friday,” Soliz says. “He’s that quiet. He’s so humble and modest, he wasn’t talking about it at all. He’s just not that type of person. It doesn’t surprise me at all though, him doing something like that. He fights the same way. He lets it hang loose, and he doesn’t take a step back.”

Thanks to Dissanayake, police apprehended one man, identified as 33-year-old Odell Mathis, but Dissanayake says he’s been warned that the other would-be robbers are still out there.

“I know there’s a possibility that they could come back and try to get revenge or something, but I’m ready,” Dissanayake says. “I wouldn’t say I’m scared, but I’m careful, and I’m prepared. If they come, they come.”