Independent Wrestler Helps Stop Knife-Wielding Man At A Denny’s

WTAJ reports that an independent wrestler named Nick “Manic” McCune saved the day at a local Denny’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania, when he helped police stop a man wielding a knife. He was intoxicated in the restaurant and yelled at customers, threatening them with the weapon. Police came in and took the knife, but Hart began to resist. He then started kicking and assaulted two officers, before threatening to shoot them. Richard Hart, 31, is now in custody at Blair County Prison, facing charges of aggravated assault of an officer and terroristic threats.

In an interview with Fox News McCune spoke about the experience. Here are highlights:

On finding out what happened from an upset fan: “She was upset, so I sat down with her to try and figure out what’s going on. She said there was a guy back there and that was calling her all kinds of names and threatening her. So, she was texting everybody asking them to get there because she didn’t wanna leave. She asked the manager, he asked the guy to stop, but she still didn’t feel comfortable. So I sat next to the guy and I had every intention on trying to make him go and say he’s sorry to her until I saw he had a giant knife on his side. So I sat there for a couple seconds and then the manager came back over because the guy was ranting and rambling. He told him if he didn’t stop he’d have to leave. That’s when the guy grabbed a hold of his knife, he didn’t pull it out, but he grabbed it and told them if they wanted to kick him out, he’d give them a reason to kick him out.”

On helping the police: “When he went to go handcuff him is when the guy tried to get away, and he struggled. So, that’s when I went outside and tried to help the cop. I never dealt with a guy with a knife before, but my wrestling training definitely came in handy.”

He also used the incident to get some attention for himself and cut a wrestling promo about it. He said in a video on Facebook: “I called the cops on him! So now that everyone knows that when I say I’m going to call the cops, I mean I’m going to call the damn cops! Then the cops came, and that drunk guy, he had a knife on him. He tried pulling it out on the cops… So, Manic goes outside, this guy is resisting arrest, Manic helped the cops arrest that guy because he was getting the attention,” he says in the video. “Everybody was staring out the windows at this drunk guy, and they weren’t paying attention to me. So that’s the reason why I helped the cops arrest him. The spotlight should be on us, and that drunk guy was taking that from us, and we couldn’t have that.”