Zoltan Bathory, the founding guitar player of the famous band Five Finger Death Punch and a jiu-jitsu artist married into the Gracie family, found himself in an odd situation.

Bathory is a black belt in both Jiu-Jitsu and Judo. He was the target of a verbal attack by a podcaster who criticized his band and challenged him to a physical fight.
Bathory, surprised by the podcaster’s words, is now considering turning this into a charitable MMA pay-per-view event, with proceeds going to an anti-bullying charity.

In an interview with MMA Mania, Bathory recounted the incident:

So somebody just sent me an audio snippet of some podcaster guy, right?
It’s a couple of years old, but somebody found it and sent it to me. And it’s a podcast, typical hater, whatever…  You don’t like the band, cool whatever. Move on, right?

But he likes hating on me, and in this podcast the guy actually challenged me.
He was talking about something, like: ‘Yeah man, these guys (Five Finger Death Punch) are thinking they’re tough dudes.”

I guess because I always talk about “American freedom” and “freedom of speech” and how important it is coming from somewhere where I didn’t have that growing up, right?

Reflecting on the podcaster’s challenge, Zoltan said:

So this guy was kind of like: “Oh, I can say anything too then so I will challenge you motherf**ker…”

He’s talking about: “I challenge you, you name the place and the time, and I’ll beat you down as many times I need to.”
And I’m thinking, dude this guy has no idea who he’s talking to.

Like there’s no way you would have said that if you actually had a clue.
So I’m thinking I might just [give you] the place and time… I’m thinking maybe make it a pay-per-view event.

Bathory is deeply concerned about the impact of bullying, especially online, where anonymity often emboldens people to say things they wouldn’t in person.
He highlighted the potential harm of such words:

How many suicides we have, right? You don’t know if I was a broken low soul, you don’t know that, right?

So you’re talking mad s**t about me, and challenging me… And basically threatening me online.
What if I was some frail little guy and now my feelings got hurt… You don’t know that.

We have people that we lost. Artists, actors, musicians, that we lost to this. So this is a serious thing.
You don’t know anybody’s mindset…

Zoltan expressed his disgust for online bullying, emphasizing its cowardice and potential to cause significant harm:

I always view the online bullying as pretty disgusting because number one, it’s not face to face.
You will never say that to my face… And number two is you don’t know who you’re dealing with.

You don’t know their background. You don’t know what’s their circumstance, right?
What you just said to somebody could be the last drop in a really tall cup that just filled. And this person might even take their own life. You don’t know that!

So when you’re talking to somebody, when you’re insulting somebody and bullying somebody online, I take it as a serious offense.

The proposed charity event by Zoltan Bathory transcends a personal vendetta. It aims to address the broader issue of online bullying. Through this event, Bathory hopes to raise awareness and funds for anti-bullying efforts, highlighting the real-world consequences of reckless online behavior.