It turned into a roo-jitsu match for the ages.
Footage captured the ludicrous moment that an Australian ex-cop and martial arts enthusiast punched an allegedly 7-foot tall kangaroo that was drowning his dog, kicking off a wild interspecies brawl.
Video of the roo-tenanny racked up over 2.5 million views on TikTok before getting taken down, but a repost is currently blowing up on Reddit.
“I saw a kangaroo … with his arms in the water, basically just staring at me,” Mick Moloney told 7 News of the roo-diculous encounter, which occurred Sunday in the Murray River in Mildura, Victoria.
The former police officer, who reportedly trains in Brazilian jiujitsu, had reportedly been walking by the river, when he noticed that one of his dogs, Hutchy, was nowhere to be found.
He had observed that his other dogs were acting unusually quiet and not venturing into the river — a departure from their normal routine of frolicking “in the water.”
Shortly thereafter, both the reason for their strange behavior and Hutchy’s whereabouts simultaneously became crystal clear.
Moloney reportedly looked at the river and saw a “7ft tall” kangaroo with its arms submerged in the water.
All of a sudden, “Hutchy came up gasping for air, water spilling out of his mouth and screaming his head off,” the ex-cop recounted.
“I was like, ‘are you kidding me?’” exclaimed Moloney, who sprang into action to rescue him from his deadly interspecies baptism.
The accompanying video, filmed on the Aussie’s smartphone, shows the ex-cop approaching the marsupial, who is holding his dog in the water while it eyeballs him inquisitively.
“I’m going to punch your f–kin head in,” warns Moloney, before commanding the marsupial to let go of his dog.
The kangaroo jack-ass refuses, prompting the pet owner to punch the beast, sending it staggering back in apparent bewilderment.
However, the roo appears to retaliate by striking back with its clawed paws, knocking Moloney’s phone into the drink and causing the screen to go blurry and then black like in a found footage horror film.
All the while, the sounds of the interspecies scuffle continue in the dark until the Aussie retrieves his phone, which shows Hutchy safely on the river bank.
The clip concludes with the roo continuing to mean mug from the water as Moloney wades back to shore while guffawing over the ridiculous predicament.
Despite his grappling pedigree, the ex-cop stated that his BJJ skills were ineffective versus the critter, which seemingly bested him with its mixed marsupial arts, according to News.com.au.
Thankfully, both Moloney and his pooch came away from the “punch on” (fight) largely unscathed.
“I got a few (scratches),” the brawler recalled. “My forearm was killing me for most of the day.
Interestingly, a lot of the Redditariat seemed to back the roo with many accusing him of letting his dogs chase the critter into the water.
“Keep your dog under control and this whole situation could have been avoided,” declared one critic. “The kangaroo was defending itself, and rightly so, from two yobbos.”
“That’ll teach him. Don’t let your dogs chase wildlife,” criticized another. “He’s lucky it didn’t push the dog under & stand on it.”
They added, “Ive seen a 6ft roo take on 2 pig hunting dogs, it would’ve killed them both had the owner not swam out to it. It stood on one & dunked the other up & down like a wild washing machine.”
One armchair wildlife expert claimed that “retreating to water is a survival instinct to escape dingo attacks.”
“They can and will drown what they view as a predator, so that dude definitely saved his dogs life,” they explained.
Dragging predators to a watery grave is not an unusual defense tactic for the marsupials. “There’s a very strong instinct — kangaroos will go to water if they’re threatened by a predator,” kangaroo ecologist Graeme Coulson from the University of Melbourne told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. “In the case of a big male, they can definitely drown dogs. If the dog swims out to them, they’ve got strong arms and big claws.”
Many Redditors claimed that Moloney should thank his lucky stars he and his pooch didn’t suffer worse.
“Yup, that’s about right. That one guy who punched a roo really f–ked people’s common sense,” declared one. “Mans lucky the roo didn’t drown him instead.”
Despite their Dr. Seuss-like appearance, kangaroos are apparently formidable combatants.
Along with drowning, the beasts — which have been known to grow to 6ft7 inches tall and weigh nearly 200 pounds — are known to box with their forepaws and stand on their tails and deliver vicious two-legged kicks.
They are also apparently well-versed in roo-jitsu, as evidenced by the now-viral video of a grey kangaroo seemingly putting its opponent to sleep with a rear naked choke.
Nonetheless, this isn’t the first time someone has risked life and limb to save their dog from one of these hopped-up brawlers.
In a now iconic clip from 2016, an Aussie dog owner was caught on video socking a kangaroo in the face after the marsupial put his pooch in a headlock.