MMA fighter Viktor Lyall breaks silence after video of Fortitude Valley confrontation goes viral

Two Darling Downs men have unknowingly picked a fight with the wrong person in a Brisbane street. WARNING: DISTRESSING FOOTAGE.

A ranked MMA fighter who was involved in an incident with two other men in Brisbane’s Fortitude Valley has broken his silence after the video went viral.

The video shows Toowoomba man Josh Townsend and former Toowoomba man Jessee Swain, as well as Swain’s partner Tia-rose Shaw, embroiled in a vulgar shouting match with Viktor Lyall in Brisbane’s popular nightspot Brunswick Street Mall.

Lyall, Australia’s eighth ranked amateur MMA fighter in the welterweight division, said the incident was sparked when he intervened in a matter between the group and another unknown person.

Lyall claims after attempting to defuse the situation by backing away from the pair, the two men continued to advance which saw Lyall launch a high kick to Swain’s head, knocking him to the ground, before a second flurry of fists saw Swain felled for a second time.

An incident between MMA fighter Viktor Myall and two other men went viral after the video was made public. Photo: ImpalerVikki

The video of the April incident found its way to social media in late July, and has since made waves in the MMA community, gaining more than 400,000 likes on Instagram and tens of thousands of views on YouTube. One video has racked up 36,000 views alone.

“I never laid hands on either of those males, nor needed to until the events of that video transpired and I needed to defend myself,” Lyall told The Chronicle.

“I was merely involving myself to extricate another party. That’s when I got involved, and that’s the only reason I got involved.

“You can see quite clearly from the video that I don’t want to hurt anyone, otherwise I would have, and I’m walking away getting followed.”

An incident between MMA fighter Viktor Myall and two other men went viral after the video was made public. Photo: ImpalerVikki

Speaking to The Chronicle Swain disputed that version of events, claiming that he was in a “scuffle” with three other people before the video starts and that in the video he was trying to talk to Lyall, not attack him.

Despite being so intoxicated “I was falling over myself”, Swain said he wasn’t looking to continue the fight but merely speak to Lyall.

But the video going viral has seen Swain and his partner receive an avalanche of abuse online.

Australia's eighth ranked amateur MMA fighter in the welterweight division Viktor Lyall.

“I honestly didn’t care about the whole situation until a few months later my partner and I woke up to a bunch of threatening and just abusive messages,” he said.

Despite the incident taking place in April, Lyall said he had no intention or desire for the video to be public, let alone go viral.

A video of the incident from a high angle that was filmed by witnesses made the rounds on social media, and while Lyall’s companion that night had filmed the incident to give to police he said he didn’t want it to be made public.

“I sent that to a few people to give them the full story of what happened and I asked everyone please don’t share it. Eventually people started making edits of it, cuts of it and then it basically got out,” he said.

“There’s no reason for me to fight people in the street, I get paid to do it, I don’t fight for free.”

A Queensland Police Service spokeswoman could not confirm if any charges had been laid in connection to the incident.

“We’re not aware of a complaint being made in relation to this matter,” she said.