Renzo Gracie and his cousin Igor Gracie were arrested last night after alledgedly getting into a fight with bouncers at trendy New York nightclub, 1 Oak on West 17th Street.
According to reports from the scene, the two Gracie’s showed up at the nightclub with five other male friends, who were also arrested.
An altercation broke out which resulted in a bouncer allegedly suffering a broken right arm along with cuts and bruises according to the New York Post.
Police then arrived on the scene and the Gracie’s and their crew were subsequently charged with gang assault.
An eyewitness caught the aftermath of the incident on video, and according to him Gracie took down a bouncer and had him in a guillotine choke. The same witness later told Sherdog.com that Gracie was in full mount on top of the doorman.
One of Gracie’s group was also alleged to have hit another bouncer with a construction cone, while punches were also thrown during the altercation.
The 47 year-old Gracie, who’s fought for the likes of the UFC, PRIDE and Elite XC, but is now retired, is one of MMA’s most colorful characters and is no stranger to trouble.
Indeed, just a few years ago he started to write Twitter posts to his followers one night saying that he thought he was about to be mugged by two men who were following him on his way home from a restaurant one night.
In a series of updates Gracie then revealed how he beat up one of the men while the other ran off. He eventually hunted down the other one, choking him out and giving him two black eyes while he was unconscious, which Gracie described as “giving him the raccoon”.
On that occasion Gracie didn’t get in trouble with the law, but last night’s incident could land him in serious trouble with a charge of gang assault in the second degree carrying a potential sentence of up to 15 years and his background in martial arts likely to count against him.
“People who train this kind of stuff have no business getting into street fights — it’s completely unfair,’’ a law-inforcement officer told the New York Post. “These guys really should have known better.”
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