Wild footage has emerged of the moment a professional Muay Thai fighter stepped in to protect two women from a road rage incident in Queensland.
Combat athlete Ryan McDonald and an unknown, tattooed man were captured on dashcam squaring off shirtless on the Bruce Highway.
In footage shared by Mr McDonald on Sunday, a van appears to cut off a small silver Hyundai hatchback before the van driver gets out.
Wearing a blue Ringers Western shirt, he appears to try and open the Hyundai’s front door before Mr McDonald intervenes.
“I was thinking this would be a good opportunity to help and use what I know to protect these two girls,” the fighter told 7News.
“Or de-escalate the situation.”
Mr McDonald has a record of five wins from eight professional fighting with four knockouts.
He told 7News of feeling confident about his chances when allegedly challenged to fight by the other man.
“He came back up to me and was like, ‘Are you sure you want this?” he said.
“And I was like, ‘Yeah’.”
The incident unfolded near the Landsborough exit on the Sunshine Coast about 2.30pm on Sunday afternoon.
Mr McDonald later defended his decision to also take off his jumper during the face-off.
“A lot of people (have been) asking me why I took my shirt off as well,” he told his TikTok audience.
“I’m aware of the situtaion I was in, I knew I was wearing a hoodie and no shirt underneath. “If we do somehow get to a fight here, I don’t want to get the hoodie pulled over my face and we were also on a highway so I didn’t want to get my shirt pulled onto the road and get hit by a car.
“I was trying to eliminate every bad possible outcome, but it turned out being the best outcome. A little bit of public humiliation for him.”
In a video shared to TikTok, Mr McDonald gave a tongue-in-cheek rundown of events without the swearing that saw his previous video banned.
“I just told them to nicely get back in his car and he walks away, but then he takes his shirt off and tries to want to fight me,” he said.
“As soon as I take my shirt off, he goes back in his car. Very nicely I tell him to ‘please drive away’. He doesn’t do so.
“So I just ask him one more time bro, do you reckon you could leave?’.
“And his missus walks over to me and tells me how good looking I am. And I said, ‘thanks, mami’. And then she was like, ‘yowza bro’.”
The footage has been viewed tens of thousands of times since Mr McDonald uploaded it across multiple social media platforms.
The Queensland Police Service has been contacted for comment.
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