Bas Rutten recounts beating three self-proclaimed “Navy SEALs” at once in Tokyo street fight

Bas Rutten has traveled all over the world over the course of his time in the combat sports industry, and he has some pretty interesting stories to share as a result.

Rutten shared one of those stories on a recent episode of Submission Radio, harkening back to a time he brawled three men claiming to be Navy SEALs in the famous Roppongi district of Tokyo.

“I fought one time three [guys] in Japan,” Rutten began. “They were claiming they were Navy SEALs, they had Navy SEALs tattoos on their bodies, but they weren’t Navy SEALs. I 100 percent guarantee they’re not, because I train the SEALs and they are not guys like that. Trust me.

“They came in, and what happened was, I was standing and I see these — it’s called MoTown, the bar is called in Roppongi in Tokyo, and it’s a long bar — I see so many people flying left and right,” Rutten continued. “I look, and there is three guys, and they pushed all these little Japanese people to the side and they marched their way through [the bar].”

Rutten continued, explaining that he was with fellow MMA pioneers Guy Mezger and Frank Shamrock at the time. Evidently, however, the troublemakers weren’t fight fans, as they clearly didn’t know who they were picking a fight with.

“I’m standing in the middle, I was just looking away, I didn’t want to look at them,” Rutten said. “Sure enough, they pushed me as well. I said, ‘hey guys, come on, man, what are you guys doing?’ And right away they surrounded me, [saying] ‘yyou want to go, man? You want to go? You wanna go bring it outside?’

“Guy walked up, Guy Mezger, and he said, ‘hey guys, we’re all professional fighters’. And they said, ‘oh, we don’t give a crap, I don’t give a crap.’ [Guy] says, ‘yeah, I know, I understand that, but from all of us, [Rutten is] the worst guy to pick a fight with, you shouldn’t do this right now.’ And the guy goes, ‘so, you want to go outside?’ I said, cool. [He said] ‘who do you want to fight?’ I said, ‘I’ll fight all three of you, what about that?'”

Then the action began. Bas Rutten claims to have made short work of his foes.

“Two of them got dropped instantly,” Rutten said. “I go, bonk, bonk. And I had one guy [left] over, and then I told the guys, I said, ‘you know what? I’m not gonna knock him out, I’m gonna submit him.’ I didn’t want to do favours,. So, I remember I got him in an armbar first. He taps, he says he wants to quit. I let him go. And then right away he attacks me again. I roll right away into a knee-bar. I say, ‘is it over now?’ And I’m hyperextending his leg a little bit because I want to make sure that he would stop, and he says ‘yeah, please, stop, stop, stop.’ I say okay, so then I let him go. And then again he attacks me. And then everybody goes, ‘Bas, just choke him out.’ I go, okay, and so I choke him out.”

Once the man was out cold, Rutten and his fellow fighters decided to teach him a lesson.

“We laid him on the ground,” Rutten said. “I believe we just pulled his pants down and we just waiting for him to wake up. That’s what I believe we just had to do. And of course he got very embarrassed when he woke up. If it would have been in the time now, we could have made a Facebook post, or a YouTube post.”

What do you think of this wild story from Bas Rutten?

This article first appeared on BJPENN.com on 4/30/2020.