Most of the time when I hear the name “Mad Dog” I don’t picture a Spartanesque beard wearing fighter saving a small baby from rapidly moving currents of water. I usually think of a girl named Raquel-who I met during my senior year of high school. Every weekend Raquel would drop by the house that had become the go to weekend party spot for underage hooligan drinkers with a purse the size of a small suitcase-filled with Mad Dog 20/20 liquor and sometimes the random bottle of Thunderbird or Zima. Needless to say Raquel was the most popular person at the party house. She was pretty much the complete opposite of Swedish UFC fighter Reza ‘Mad Dog’ Madadi, she didn’t save us from drowning instead she helped us all drown into drunken idiotic stupors. To us she was a hero.
Thankfully, I grew out of that stage quickly and now understand a whole different kind of heroism like that displayed by Madadi over the weekend in an archipelago outside of Stockholm, Sweden. According to SwedenMMA.net, Madadi who was also a ‘former aspiring firefighter’ was kayaking and stopped for lunch at a restaurant when he witnessed a one and half year old baby fall from a pier into the water. The baby’s father also dove in after the child and Madadi instantly ran to the water and jumped in to save them both from some rapid moving water currents.
“Everyone just panicked but I didn’t even think, I just acted on instinct,.”
“I could tell the man was very upset, but at the same time relieved. It’s easier said than done to act fast in situations like these. The problem is that many people start to think, but there is no time for thinking.”
It is reported by one of the many people who witnessed Madadi rescue the boy and his father, that had he not have acted the little baby would have drowned. Madadi says he doesn’t want praise for the heroic act, because he says to be “a UFC fighter does not just mean to perform in the octagon but to also be a role model in real life,” But in our eyes the world sure doesn’t have enough guys like him-or hear about guys like him enough, so hats off to you sir. Madadi won his UFC debut via submission back in April at UFC on Fuel TV: Gustaffson vs Silva and will be back in the octagon this October to face Christiano Marcello at UFC 153. [Source]
