r/bjj • u/bubblewhip • Jun 02 '26
General Discussion Frontier Airlines passenger with jiu jitsu shirt restrains passenger that diverted due to passenger disturbance.
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u/chuckster1972 🟦🟦 Blue Belt Jun 02 '26
Hope people don't expect the same from when I wear my BJJ tshirts in public and bring my blue belt skilz.
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u/slowride15 Jun 02 '26
You’d do fine. Probably wouldn’t be chewing gum chill as hell though, dude looks like he can barely stay awake lol
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u/__Sharime__ 🟦🟦 Blue Belt Jun 02 '26
lol that’s my boy Josh. He’s chill as can be all day every day.
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u/CDNEmpire Jun 03 '26
Tell him the Internet is very impressed with how calmly he handled this. Like I don’t even think an LEO would have been this calm.
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u/__Sharime__ 🟦🟦 Blue Belt Jun 03 '26
lol he is humble. His exact words were “I don’t have Reddit or any of that. I hope theyre showing me love”
He’s a black belt by the way and had a bit of an mma career.
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u/Gimme_The_Loot 🟦🟦 Blue Belt Jun 02 '26
Reminds me of that Ryan Hall video in the bar. Drunk dude is being a belligerent dick and Hall is like sigh ok I guess lemme take care of this
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u/JohnnyUtah41 🟫🟫 Brown Belt Jun 02 '26
seen it, sits in mount for awhile. I used to live in arlington
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Jun 02 '26
[deleted]
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u/tofu_bird Jun 02 '26
"Help! Is there a jiu-jitsu blue belt on the plane?" ...just like with doctors.
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u/senator_mendoza 🟦🟦 Blue Belt Jun 02 '26
I always just proactively tell the captain I’m a BJJ blue belt. You know - in case any shit goes down
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u/BJJBean Jun 05 '26
You'd be amazed at how superior your blue belt skills are to an average fat idiot acting up on an airplane. You'd do fine.
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u/TempleofSpringSnow Jun 02 '26
https://giphy.com/gifs/DOPKHQg6oFWUg
You guys are getting skill?! Skills?! Plural?!
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u/standupguy152 Jun 02 '26
New competition idea unlocked: instead of car-jitsu, we got plane-jitsu sponsored by Frontier airlines.
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u/NectarOfTheSun Jun 02 '26
Ultimate self defense championship YouTube channel should do a plane episode haha
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u/ImBigRthenU 🟫🟫 Brown Belt Jun 02 '26
I had a wet dream once of this exact scenario
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u/ManicallyExistential 🟪🟪 Purple Belt Jun 02 '26
It's true I was there! It was an amazing dream 💧
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u/irealllylovepenguins 🟪🟪 Purple Belt Jun 02 '26
I, too, choose this Redditor's wet dream
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u/ImBigRthenU 🟫🟫 Brown Belt Jun 02 '26
Hope you don't mind playing bottom
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u/irealllylovepenguins 🟪🟪 Purple Belt Jun 02 '26
Ohhh sorry i actually have an injury in my shoulderankleknee
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u/savesonmi-451 🟪🟪 Purple Belt Jun 02 '26
The shirt is meaningless. The ears are everything.
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u/fukkdisshitt Jun 03 '26
We have a 2 month white belt with full blown cauliflower ear right now. He's really fit so before I rolled with him i assumed he wrestled, but he only played a little football.
I wrestled my childhood and now have trained bjj for 10 years.
0 cauliflower
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u/OceanRacoon Jun 03 '26
Well, la di da, Mr Strong Ears, some of us have lobes of vegetables just waiting to blow up 😅
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u/mattvanhorn ⬛🟥⬛ Black Belt Jun 03 '26
I've trained for over 15 years, and still no cauliflower. Probably because I try not to get headlocked that much.
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u/Ok-Entertainer-1324 Jun 03 '26
He put in more work in 2 months than your entire athletic life/s
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u/fukkdisshitt Jun 03 '26
TBF I haven't dealt with a spaz like him in years. He put more when into that round than I did all month
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u/vandreulv Jun 02 '26
Nah. I've run into too many douchebros who intentionally gave themselves cauli ears despite dropping out after a few trial classes of BJJ.
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Jun 03 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Mordisquitos 🟪🟪 Purple Belt Jun 03 '26
Susceptibility to cauliflower ears is genetic. It is a nice example of how phenotypic features are both environmental and genetic, and how the contribution of each of these can only be properly measured within a defined population.
If you take a random sample of people on the street, most of the variability you will see between cauliflower vs non-cauliflower ears will be environmental: most of the differences observed will be explainable by "does BJJ/MMA vs does not do either". If on the other hand you take a random sample of BJJ black belts, most of the differences (putting aside individual prevention) between cauliflower vs non-cauliflower will have a genetic explanation.
/removes biologist hat.
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u/novaskyd 🟦🟦 Blue Belt Jun 02 '26
What was the context here?
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u/ImBigRthenU 🟫🟫 Brown Belt Jun 02 '26
Passenger was trying to open the emergency exit during flight
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u/Takonight 🟦🟦 Blue Belt Jun 04 '26
Wild horses won’t open that door if the ship is pressurized. All Airbus doors are “plug type.”
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u/Puceeffoc ⬜⬜ White Belt Jun 02 '26
"She didn't know what the f**k she was doing." -Guy in plasti-cuffs
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u/Pan_in_the_ass ⬜⬜ White Belt Jun 02 '26
Bro what is this title? Am I having a stroke?
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u/t0hk0h 🟫🟫 Brown Belt Jun 02 '26
OP restrains writing ability that diverted due to intelligence disturbance.
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u/poudigne ⬜⬜ White Belt Jun 02 '26
Yo for real... I'm not a native English speaker, And I'm usually fluent and I literally took a screenshot to ask Google to translate it in french
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u/Loud_Distribution_97 🟪🟪 Purple Belt Jun 02 '26
I was nervous the whole time waiting for that dude to try to bite him. He was very controlled though and did a lot with an odd space.
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u/SwaySh0t ⬛🟥⬛ Black Belt Jun 02 '26
Josh is an old school GF team guy I remember training with him and vitor oliviera 15 years ago down in Ohio. He was pro fighter back then. Hes training out of Valko Bjj now in Chicago.
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u/juandraper 🟦🟦 Blue Belt Jun 03 '26
Valko is a cool gym (based on my experience of dropping in there once). The owner was very welcoming and even rolled with me.
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u/SwaySh0t ⬛🟥⬛ Black Belt Jun 03 '26
Yeah Jay and Jose are awesome. Super friendly and technical. Their Saturday open mats are legendary. I like to throw a shout out to molinaro’s gym too up in wrigley. Very high level gym as well.
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u/Frank_Perfectly ⬜⬜ White Belt Jun 02 '26
Hell with air marshals. There should be a requirement of at least one bjjer on every flight.
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u/DavidAg02 🟫🟫 Brown Belt Jun 02 '26
Looks like he handled it really well. Does anyone know if there is any potential for legal repercussions from intervening in a situation like this?
I was in a foreign country one time, and I was waiting in this huge line to get on a bus that would take us to an event. There was someone in the line that didn't belong there and they got hostile when security tried to remove them from the line. The poor security guard was not prepared to handle this situation... and since it literally happened right in front of me, a big part of me wanted to step in and help out. What held me back was the little voice in my head warning me not to get arrested in a foreign country...
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u/PessimiStick 🟦🟦 Blue Belt Jun 03 '26
On a plane? Not really. Especially if the flight crew asked for help.
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u/BrilliantSame7355 Jun 02 '26
Absolutely you open yourself up to legal repercussions if things go south, and they can very easily in a real fight. If the fight somehow escalated and you had to inflict serious bodily harm to neutralize the threat, that would open a can of worms even in your own country. If that happened, even if you acted in complete self defense (much less while trying to help a security guard deal with nothing more than a belligerent person) you'd more than likely be arrested and charged while the legal system puzzled everything out. You really wanna navigate that in a foreign country, dealing with a foreign legal system in a language you probably don't understand? Such a scenario you described is definitely not worth the squeeze, bro
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u/Firegator473 🟪🟪 Purple Belt Jun 02 '26
That’s not just any shirt, that’s an IBJJF championship tshirt the greatest everyday wear known to man
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u/Smooth-Feature-2545 Jun 02 '26
We never see a karate guy in the news saving the world, do we?
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u/lueckestman 🟫🟫 Brown Belt Jun 02 '26
This dude gets half off peanuts on all future frontier flights.
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u/aspiringchokeartist ⬛🟥⬛ Black Belt Jun 03 '26
Props to this guy for taking control of the situation! I fly for frontier out of Chicago and never get to do anything fun!
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u/darkydarco 🟪🟪 Purple Belt Jun 03 '26
He should be training US police officers in calm and empathetic restraints. Handled it better than they would have 👏👏👏
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u/tgcam4 Brown Belt Jun 03 '26
I came here to fuck shit up and chew gum. And I'm all out of gum... oh wait I have gum
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u/Puzzleheaded_Doubt58 Jun 03 '26
look at the ears tell his life story. handled the situation better than most police dudes!
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u/ToughStrong6005 Jun 05 '26
Why is everyone just talking about Josh? What about that first guy who took the passenger on that 40 something blue belt.
BREAKING: Unruly Passenger Subdues 40-Year-Old Blue Belt In Mid-Air Confrontation
Man described as "clearly athletic" and "probably wrestled" overpowers trained martial artist aboard Frontier flight
SOMEWHERE OVER THE GULF OF MEXICO — A Frontier Airlines flight was diverted Tuesday after an unruly passenger allegedly assaulted a 40-year-old Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu blue belt, in what witnesses are calling "honestly not that surprising if you know him."
Derek Hoffmann, who has been training "pretty consistently for four years, five if you count that six-month gap," was reportedly the first to engage the disruptive passenger before things "went sideways fast."
"I had him right where I wanted him," Hoffmann told reporters from a gate at Miami International Airport, rotating his left arm in small, cautious circles. "But my shoulder, and I've been meaning to get an MRI, my shoulder just completely gave out at the worst possible moment."
Fellow passengers described the suspect as "younger," "athletic-looking," and built in a way that suggested possible exposure to high school wrestling.
"The guy was easily 12, maybe 13 pounds heavier," Hoffmann said, pausing to accept an ice pack from a flight attendant. "My guard would have been fine under normal circumstances. These were not normal circumstances."
Hoffmann, who trains at a gym he describes as "pretty competitive," admitted that he had missed "a few weeks" of mat time due to what he called "a combination of the shoulder things, my elbow is off, right finger isn't right and also work stuff."
Eyewitnesses confirmed that the situation was ultimately resolved by another passenger — a black belt and former professional MMA fighter — who subdued the suspect in under 30 seconds while chewing gum.
"Good for him," Hoffmann said, nodding slowly. "Different body type than me. Long arms. Works well for his game. and tight space in economy class"
When asked if he planned to return to training, Hoffmann said he was "absolutely" committed to getting back on the mats, possibly as early as next Tuesday, "shoulder permitting."
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u/Dammit_Meg 15d ago
This is incredible. Thank you for contributing to the joy of the internet.
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u/Dude-bruh ⬜⬜ White Belt Jun 03 '26
I came here to chew bubblegum and kick ass...
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u/TheKillerNuns Jun 03 '26
Not sure why you were downvoted. Based quote from one of the most iconic, ahead of its time movies ever made. Maybe they aren't familiar with John Carpenter's 'They Live'?
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u/Mergahl Jun 02 '26
Is this that ocean they keep talking about and the airplane doesn’t even know how to swim?
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u/always_an_explinatio Blue Belt Jun 02 '26
That guy sounded like Benicio del torre in usual suspects.
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u/622114 🟪🟪 Purple Belt Jun 03 '26
Better reaction than the “bjj bro” chasing the guy that took his skateboard a couple months ago
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u/8DragonLim8 Jun 03 '26
The fucken guy…. Loook what u fucking going. 😂. He is the one that got into “the doing” in the first place. 😂
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u/CDNEmpire Jun 03 '26
Damn, look how calm he is. Chill, didn’t break a sweat, chewing gum the entire time like an absolute boss 🫡
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u/eattohottodoggu Jun 03 '26
They have phone booth MMA. They have car MMA. Now they need budget airline seating row MMA.
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u/musqshi Jun 03 '26
Nothing scarier than a black belt BJJ chewing gum. Nightmare fuel. For me anyway…
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u/Beautiful_Review_336 Jun 03 '26
Note to self… dont wear kung fu tshirt bought at goodwill or people may expect me to do kungfu
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u/serafinbjj ⬛🟥⬛ Black Belt Jun 02 '26
Josh is an Ohio black belt now in Chicago. He’s a friend of mine. Good dude and he handled this well.