Antoni Hardonk, a UFC heavyweight , had just finished a training session last month in Los Angeles near Los Angeles International Airport and as he stood speaking with his attorney, Nima Safapour, three young men approached him. They asked if they could bum money to buy cigarettes.

“My feeling is,  I want to help someone if I can, so I pulled out my wallet,” Hardonk said.

Finding no small bills, Hardonk told them no luck this time, guys.

One of them pulled out a shiv which Hardonk said had about a two-inch blade. The 6′ 4″ fighter wasn’t having it. As a former security guard and a bouncer in Amsterdam , Netherlands, he was prepared to follow through.

“I said, ‘What? Are you crazy? I’m not giving you my wallet,’ ” Hardonk said.

Hardonk told the men if they wanted his wallet, they’d have to come and get it. The men had second thoughts and left. Hardon and Safapour then watched incredulous as the same three men surrounded a woman. Safapour called the police. The thieves lost interest in the woman when the trio turned their attention on a man who was walking alone. They headed in his direction, demanded his wallet, and wrestled the man’s wallet away from him.

Hardonk, who had continued to watch the group, saw them harassing the man and ran in the direction of the incident. Hardonk knocked over two of the men, but the third, who nwo had the wallet, took off running. Hardonk followed and the man with the wallet dropped it and all three men jumped over a fence and hightailed it into a stand of trees to complete their getaway.

Hardonk, who said he considered the possibility that one of the men may have had a gun, said it would probably have been smarter to just give them the wallet.

“I believe if you can do something to help someone else, you should,” Hardonk said. “We’re all here and we should all try to help each other if we can. It’s the right thing to do. I just did what I thought was right.”

Los Angeles police told Hardonk that there had been three similar incidents on the same block in the same week. No arrests have been made.