Joshua Harley was walking home from work on Tuesday evening when two men approached him along the Lachine canal in St Henri and tried to mug him.
"Two guys asked me for money for the bus, I reached into my pocket and I had a $20 bill in there and a toonie and a loonie and a couple of quarters and one of the two strongly suggested that I just give him all the money I had on me," he says. "It kind of escalated from there."
What the men didn't know is that Harley is a an MMA fighter and trainer at Tritton Performance/Harley Muy Thai.
When one of them stepped towards him Harley put his training to use.
"I grabbed him and kind of kicked his feet out from underneath him which is something we do quite commonly in Muy Thai and it works quite well," he says. "When I did that the friend took off running."
Out of danger, Harley told the man not to get up, left and told police what happened.
He describes the men as in their 30s, white with brown hair, and Quebecois accents, one was in a black t-shirt, the other in a motorcycle vest with no patches.
Harley says the city and police need to step up security measures in the neighbourhood before another person - who isn't a trained fighter - is targeted.
"I don't know if you remember, when it happened last time I ended up in the News," he says. "I ran a couple seminars for free for the public in the area at the gym and then ironically I almost got jumped in St. Henri."
He offered those free self defence classes because a group of teens were terrorizing residents in the area.
He thinks the city must also step up to improve safety.
"Either with patrols or security cameras or lights," he says. "You could put lights down the whole canal it wouldn't be a bad idea."
Harley doesn't recommend that other victims of muggings fight their attackers.
"I could've just as easily got hurt, I mean if someone pulled a knife or a weapon I could have been in deep, deep trouble," he says. "It's not worth getting killed over $24 and a pack of gum."