Roger Huerta: Hero or Street Vigilante?

Roger Huerta is an ex-UFC professional mma fighter and is a current Bellator professional mma fighter.
On Aug 4, 2010, TMZ posted an amateur video of Roger Huerta engaging a larger African-American male who moments earlier bull-rushed and sucker-punched a woman from behind.  The video doesn't really show much of the actual fight.  We catch a quick glimpse of a head stomp from a topless Roger Huerta and the larger African-American male is lying motionless on the ground.

Immediately, many netizens of the mma forums and communities heralded Roger Huerta as a hero who dished out justice when no one else would.  Today, in Huerta's statement, he does not deny the incident, but rather justifies it by stating:

"I just don't think that it's right to hit a woman. I approached the man calmly and said, 'Do you know what you just did? You just knocked out this girl.' [He responds] 'F*ck you, f*ck these b-----s, I'll knock out any f*ckin' b---h that I wanna f*ckin' knock out, I'll knock your f*cking b---h ass out.' ... As he's saying this, he's taking off his shirt ... and at that point I was like, alright ... I got the better of him and I left. If that was my mom, if that was my sister, my spouse, anyone … I would've wanted someone to step in and do something about it."

If Roger Huerta prevented the African-American male's punch by stepping in to intercept it and then redirected the force as a means to defend both himself and this female victim, then it would be a different matter entirely.

However, that is not what transpired.  Huerta sought out this man after the fact.  There was no need for him to get involved.  How did he protect the woman?  He didn't.  He was angered and he reacted to his anger by engaging the perpetrator with violence.

I recall reading somewhere that the difference between marital arts and mere violence is that in martial arts, the disciple trains his mind, body and spirit to protect things precious to him/her - be it his/her family, friends, Emperor, King, Lord, or ideals.  The key difference is:  there is a willingness to protect - a motivation with a focus on positive energy (to protect).  Without this intent, any practitioner of any martial art is simply applying violence.  With deep regret, I must admit, this is exactly what Roger Huerta demonstrated.

In my heart of hearts, I believe this violent low-life of a human being who would sneak up on a woman to deliver a potentially lethal punch deserves a stern sentence from the justice system.  There is a side of me that is happy Huerta took him out.

However, the rational side of me knows that this incident is not one where Huerta is the hero.  Every fibre of my being knows that what Roger Huerta did was wrong and what's even worse is that the mma netizens seem to be supporting the actions of this talented professional mma fighter.  By doing this, we are not sending a positive message about martial arts, the sport of mma and its fighters.  Martial arts is about discipline and control (of self).  There was no need for Roger to lose it, but that's what happened.  The opportunity to protect flew by and Huerta made the incorrect decision to exact his own brand of street justice.

For Roger's sake, I hope nothing career-damaging comes out of this incident.