Australian Man Having a 6-Minute Wrestle with Kangaroo Caught on Video

A kangaroo moves close to a residential area from bushland in Merimbula, in Australia's New South Wales state on January 6, 2020. - Massive bushfires have flared up in the vast country's southeast in a months-long crisis, killing nearly half a billion native animals in New South Wales state alone, scientists estimate.
(Photo : Photo by SAEED KHAN/AFP via Getty Images)

A video of what seems to be a boxing match between a kangaroo and Australian man went viral last week.

The 6-minute wrestle happened outside of the man's home after failure to shoo away the unwanted visitor, Complex recounted.

The man from Ballina on the north coast of New South Wales named Cliff Des was caught in a predicament with the six-foot-tall kangaroo "trying to rip my little dogs out of the yard."

The brutal battle with the rogue kangaroo recalled in Today Show Australia featured Des speaking about the "fight of his life".

"I started running into my yard and next thing you know I've slipped over and it's jumped on my back," he said. "It didn't want to go away. It just put its claws up and got on its back feet and started chasing me."

The viral video began upon that moment.

The Wild Tale about Fighting a 6-Foot Buck

Des described the moment he tackled and body slammed the eastern grey to the ground.

The footage shows Des being chased by the irate animal and hit the ground. It stomped on him until he got back up and desperately clutched a stick to fight it off.

"Where I landed I was fortunate enough to land on a stick... but after three whacks it snapped like a carrot and I thought this guy means business. He's gonna mongrel me real good," Des said.

It was then that the two matched and exchanged punches and uppercuts.

Des, a former boxing trainer also got overwhelmed by the wild animal's boxing technique, so he "took it to the ground" in MMA-style and wrestled for five minutes.

"He gouged me on the top of me head, he bit me finger, he shredded me down the arm a bit and he gored me in the back of the leg."

Des suspects that the animal may have gotten extremely aggressive and "pretty crook" because of a certain Phalaris grass that pops up in his yard.

"When they eat it they get something called Polaris toxicity," he said.

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Still an Australian Icon

Des's fighting match with the animal did not at all created a grudge to this "beautiful creature."

"They're an Australian icon... just don't go near them. They can snap... we don't know how they think. They don't know how we think."

"Everyone has a go at them and says they're rear on the roads and we're hitting them with our cars but when you analyse it, we built our roads over theirs."

Des was glad it didn't happen to anyone vulnerable like the elderly, women, or children, or it could have been worse and ended into a fatal incident.

Generally, the risk of being attacked by a kangaroo is very low.

In fact, fewer than five people in NSW are treated for kangaroo-related injuries, according to Office of Environment and Heritage.

Risk of an attack usually happens in areas where people have altered kangaroos' natural habitat and feeding patterns, or a new habitat has been provided with the creation of dams, shelter and pastures.

In some cases, a kangaroo sees a person as a "sparring partner".