Kevin Holland put his martial arts skills to good use when he helped apprehend a gunman during a shooting at a Houston restaurant on March 14, 2022. 

He was out eating sushi with his friend Patrick Robinson when the gunman fired a shot in the air. A person close to the shooter had engaged the shooter, and that was when the UFC fighter decided to intervene. 

During an interview with ESPN later on, Holland dished on what was prompted him to go from being a cage fighter to a crime fighter. 

"Besides doing cage fighting, I train self-defense first and foremost," he explained. 

At that moment, the crime fighter noted how intervening was the best way for him to defend himself and those around him. 

"Plus, I like Batman," Holland quipped, referring to the crime fighter of the fictional city of Gotham. 

However, Holland also noted how he had undergone rigorous training to be qualified enough to intervene, for those without that history behind them, he had this to say:

I wouldn't tell the next person to do it unless they're seriously trained for that type of situation.

Crime fighter Kevin Holland helped apprehend a gunman in Houston (Source: Instagram)

Crime Fighter Kevin Holland's Recollection of the Shooting

Holland also told the outlet he initially thought that the loud bang going off behind him was a champagne bottle popping. 

After all, there was a birthday party going on. The thought of someone engaged in a public shooting hadn't even crossed Holland's mind. 

"I go to look around and I see people running like they had the look of death on [their] face, like super worried," he recalled. 

Seeing that, Holland and his friend "got low" and proceeded to look in the shooting's direction. 

Holland went over to where the gunman was and noticed that a good samaritan was wrestling the gunman for control of the firearm. 

But this put the MMA fighter, who had already picked up a chair to hit the gunman with, in a dilemma: which one of them was the threat?

Holland soon noticed that it was the man on the bottom. So, he and Robinson pried the firearm off the gunman's hands. 

The seasoned martial artist then took the man into his lap, wrapped his legs around his legs, and put him in a rear-naked choke submission hold.

"As soon as he was [asleep], I let go of the choke, slid out on top, got full mount, stretched the arms out so he couldn't reach for anything," Holland narrated.

The crime-fighting trio then apprehended the gunman and waited for the authorities to arrive. 

What the Authorities Had to Say

According to a Houston PD spokesperson, the suspect fired a gun into the air at the restaurant inside the Highland Village shopping center at around 11:30 p.m., Monday.

After the shot went off, the person sitting next to the gunman in the restaurant grabbed his hand, pointed the gun away, and attempted to subdue him as officers were on their way.

The gunman was 24-year-old Jesus Edrai Cardiel Samaniego. The spokesperson said he'd been charged with misdemeanor unlawful carrying of a weapon and felony deadly conduct.

This narrative from the officials neatly ties up with what Holland said to the outlet.

However, since the police are not allowed to hand out names of witnesses to the public, they refused to acknowledge Holland's intervention. 

Last year, in October, the MMA fighter was making headlines for thwarting an alleged carjacker, tracking down the accused thief in his car, and holding him down until police in Saginaw, Texas, arrived on the scene.