Self Defense: Cheeseburger Josh vs. Jiu-Jitsu Joe, at Whataburger

On St. Patrick’s Day, March 18, 2010, at 3:18 a.m., at a Whataburger fast food joint, in Austin, Texas, a now-legendary altercation took place. Coming out first, in the blue corner, was Joshua “Ace” Moll, clad in a TapouT tee. And in the red corner, we had our champion, Joe Guichebarou, a three-month white belt student of jiu-jitsu, who wrestled a little bit in high school.

The pair will forever be known as Cheeseburger Josh and Jiu-Jitsu Joe.

What Happened

We join the action with a drunken “Ace” screaming at the staff about a cheeseburger he ordered, but hadn’t yet received. He keeps screaming over and again about it, getting more and more belligerent with each passing moment.

Josh continues to yell at the staff, and then begins to yell at the patrons who are seated, eating their food, and minding their own business.

Joe was sitting by himself, eating his meal. when Cheeseburger Josh started screaming at him too. Joe started to reply, but Josh kept telling him to shut up, repeatedly.

However, Joe didn’t stop replying. He was talking in a calm voice, but perhaps poking fun at Josh’s drunken antics, saying “I have a cheeseburger and it’s great.”

That escalated matters, and Cheeseburger Josh started calling Joe out into the parking lot. When repeated threats to step outside didn’t result in the desired donnybrook, Josh started to rush a still seated Joe. Reacting quickly, Joe got out of his seat, executed a double leg takedown of sorts, and the Battle of Whataburger was on.

Joe’s form wasn’t great, but in his defense, three months is not a lot of jiu-jitsu, and he was drunk (it was after all Saint Patrick’s Day, in Texas). The really bad news was that in the process, Josh’s pants fell down, and he wasn’t wearing underwear.

Joe took Josh down and eventually got side control. At one point Joe goes for a headlock, rather than the far preferable underhook, and loses control, but eventually regains it, and even tries to remember how to do an Americana.

Once the situation stabilized, Joe asks Cheeseburger Josh repeatedly, “are you done fighting?” and eventually he is, mostly.

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Jiu-jitsu Joe later broke down what happened from his perspective.

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And there is even a happy ending - the two appeared on a local radio station and expressed no hard feelings.

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The Takeaways

There are a number of takeaways here:

  1. If a drunk is harassing a crowd, don’t harass him back - he’s drunk.
  2. If you do harass a drunk back, know jiu-jitsu. Also, if you don’t harass drunks back, know jiu-jitsu.
  3. No headlocks, yes underhooks.
  4. If you ever get drunk and harass an entire Whataburger, for God’s sake, wear underwear.

In just three months Joe learned enough jiu-jitsu to control the situation with no one getting hurt. Other martial arts claim to teach peace and non-violence, but jiu-jitsu uniquely delivers it.

It’s been said wisely that, “A harmless man is not a good man; a good man is a very dangerous man who has that under voluntary control.” Jiu-jitsu provides a vast range of options from simple pinning, to sending an adversary to the hospital for an extended stay with very broken limbs. It’s a martial art that works.

There is an archaic and comical argument that going to the ground is a terrible idea, because, for example, there are needles from junkies laying around. This train of thought is nonsensical, because, if that is your fear, then you need to learn to grapple to avoid being taken now. And there were no needles laying around in this video. In fact, the only thing laying around was Cheeseburger Josh, rendered harmless and helpless.