You’d be forgiven for thinking that 71-year-old Arnold Schwarzenegger was passed his prime.
It’s been a long time since the height of his action movie fame and then he spent years as the Governor of California. I’d never expect him to be unfit, but it would make sense if he wasn’t the powerhouse he used to be.
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If you’ve been under a rock in the last 24 hours, you may have missed the news that Arnold was assaulted.
The incident happened in South Africa, where Arnold is attending the Arnold Sport Festival Africa.
Arnold was on site to judge a gymnastics competition and documented some of it via Snapchat.
Just as he finished a snap, an unknown man came rushing up behind him, jumping and kicking Arnold’s back with both feet.
In the original viral video, it’s difficult to judge how much of an impact it had on the Terminator.
Clearly, the kick was a surprise, but since Arnold was pushed into the person filming, we don’t get a great look.
After a quick glimpse of the attacker being pinned by security, the camera then swings down toward the ground.
We do get to hear the man’s crazy yelling, though.
Inexplicably, he appears to be repeating “Help me! I need a Lamborghini!”
I keep trying to come up with something else he could be saying, but no luck.
After the incident, Arnold posted to Twitter, assuring everyone that he’s perfectly fine.
In fact, until he saw the video, he had no idea he’d been kicked! The dude put all that effort into a drop-kick, only for his victim to mistake it for a “jostle.”
Now another video is available, allowing us to see the incident from a whole new angle.
In it, you can really see how little effect the kick had on the “old” man.
Arnold it simply knocked a few steps forward, while the guy falls hard to the floor.
As he’s led away shouting, Arnold looks more puzzled and annoyed than anything.
According to the event organizers, the culprit carefully planned the attack.
The local police say that he’s been known to stage similar stunts before, but there was no way to have predicted this one.
Meanwhile, Arnold just wants everyone to focus on what’s most important: the athletes.
Instead of giving one idiot his 15 minutes of fame, Arnold would like us to cheer on the more than 24,000 athletes, of all 9ages and skill levels, competing at the event.
This morning, he shared a video of a karate competition.
In it, he referenced yesterday’s incident with a joke: “I’m so lucky that none of those girls drop-kicked me yesterday,” he said.
He also shared an awesome reconnection he’s made with a man named Ephraim.
A few months back Ephraim was featured by Humans of New York. In his story, he talked about feeling like a failure because memory problems had prevented him from excelling at school, limiting his job prospects.
In a random encounter with Arnold, the star gave him a pep talk that changed his whole perspective.
Knowing that he was going to be in South Africa again, Arnold contacted Humans of New York.
They reconnected him with Ephraim and made it possible for them to meet again this weekend.
Arnold has also posted an update about pressing charges.
He has no plpans to do so and hopes that his assailant has learned from his poor choices. Meanwhile, Arnold wants to keep his focus squarely on the thousands of athletes the event is actually about.
It turns out that the Terminator is a pretty classy guy.
And he can still take a hit.
